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THE 


Ralston Health Club 

\\ 


(95) NINETY-FIFTH (95) EDITION (95) 

FORMERLY GENERAL, BUT NOW KNOWN AS THE 

BOOK OK 

l/ytee flernlefjVf 


★ 

PREPARED WITH THE AID OF 2,400 ASSISTANTS, 

★ 

★ 

AND CONTAINING NATURAL LAWS PROVED BY 

★ 

★ 

187,000 EXPERIMENTS 

★ 


ISSUED 

IN OUR TWENTY-NINTH YEAR BY THB 

RALSTON COMPANY, 

WASHINGTON, D. C- 

1905 














A 




^ 1b 


V 


A 


0 


LISRARY of OONGiH SSJ 
I wu Ooufes ."{et-ci vcu f 

frtAV 16 l«U5 

Couyn^iit Ciiii> 

2 3 ./ ?0 J~ 

GLASS CL AXc. No; 

//2 / $ 3 

COPY tt. 

Copyrighted, 1905, by 
RALSTON COMPANY 


All rights reserved 











NOTHING SECRET. 

It has been asked at various times by various persons if the 
Ralston Club is a secret society. We are not, and have never been, 
nor will we ever be such an organization. Our mission is to do 
good, and our lights should shine for all humanity. We do not 
mean by this that secret societies may not do good. We do not 
assume to judge them one way or another. 

OUR RELIGION. 

The question is often asked, what is our religion? We do not 
have the time to make reply to the vast number of inquiries that 
are sent to us, and we therefore try to anticipate as many as pos¬ 
sible in our books, so as to avoid disappointing our members. We 
trust that the following will prove satisfactory: 

Ralstonism is in no way connected with religious questions. 
Our members are of all creeds, just as the students of pl^siology 
or geography may be of all creeds. Our religion is to do the great¬ 
est amount of good to the greatest number of people. 

We are pledged to receive no financial profits from Ralstonism. 
All our receipts go to the great fund that supplies the emolu¬ 
ments to members as rewards for their efforts to increase our 
power of doing good’ 

OUR POLITICS. 

We are not in any way connected with political parties or 
with political questions. The nearest we have come to it is to 
fight for pure food laws, and sanitary protection for the people; 
but even this work has been done through our regents who are 
numerous everywhere; and we have permitted nothing to be at¬ 
tempted in the name of Ralstonism. 

PRIVATE BUSINESS AFFAIRS. 

We have on our records the names of many persons of wealth and 
prominence. Some of them are known the world over. Some are 
multi-millionaires. Others are famous in various walks of life. 
Intermingled with them are the names of the middle classes, the 
humble and the lowly. All names are sacred to us. We never 
make them known to any person, and certainly not to the public. 
This is our contract with each and every member; for the act of 
joining this club, like that of employing professional assistance, 
is a private business affair. 


7 



K 


© E SURE TO OBTAIN YOUR CLUB-NUMBER AND 
CLASSIFICATION AT ONCE. THIS CAN BE 
DONE BY TAKING OUT THE APPLICATION 
PAGE, WHICH IS PAGE 15, AND MAILING IT AS 
DIRECTED. AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE YOUR 
CLUB-NUMBER WRITE IT IN THE PANEL PRO¬ 
VIDED FOR IT ON THE THIRD PAGE OF THIS 
BOOK. 


8 


CHAPTER ONE 

General Membership 

FOR 


PERSONS . OF . LIMITED ♦ MEANS 


VERY PERSON of intelligence, in this era of increasing 
disease, desires some organization through which, to 
secure safety against the evils that lead to suffering and 
premature decrepitude. All persons who own this book 
of Inside Membership are at once entitled to admission 
into the Ralston Health Club as Inside Members. 

But there are others who cannot readily afford the sum of one 
dollar and ten cents; yet there are none so poor that they cannot 
pay fifty cents. 

GENERAL MEMBERSHIP is offered for fifty cents; and 
with it is offered, free of all cost, a copy of the newest of all books, 
RALSTON MEALS, which contains fifty-five chapters and nearly 
50,000 words. That is the first step in Ralston ism for the poor 
man. 

Why should RALSTON MEALS be the first step? 

The reasons are important, and they are: 

1. There never was an era in the history of humanity when 
health was so low, when the faculties were so weak, when age and 
decrepitude came on so early in life, and when diseases were so 
numerous as at the present time. 

2. Ninety-nine per cent, of the causes are due to what enters 
the stomach. 

3. There is produced on earth every year, in limitless variety, 
enough wholesome food to feed both rich and poor and maintain 
perfect health without dieting or denying the good things of life. 

( 9 ) 








10 


GENERAL MEMBERSHIP. 


For the foregoing reasons the book of RALSTON MEALS is 
the first step in Ralstonism if the purse is limited. It costs but 
fifty cents. Every man or woman who lives the Ralston life, or 
even the smallest part of it, feels an irresistible desire to tell it 
to others. No power on earth can prevent the spread of a living 
truth. But, to meet the purse of the poor, it is necessary to pro¬ 
vide great value for little money. Thus the sum of fifty cents 
places General Membership and Ralston Meals within reach of 
everybody; and this fact will help you to Ralstonize the com¬ 
munity in which you live. 

Much of the debility and low mental and physical condition of the 
people is due to the lack of proper food properly cooked. In the 
first place, it is very difficult to secure wholesome articles for the 
table. 

During the past ten years the increase in the adulteration of 
foods, drinks and medicines has been so great that the country 
has taken one enormous leap into the dark. Groceries have be¬ 
come apothecary shops, and their keepers are fast being known 
as apothecary-grocers ; for they carry very little of the plain and 
wholesome lines of goods that were known a generation ago. To¬ 
day their stock consists of prepared goods, practically all of which 
are treated with chemical poisons to keep them from spoiling, 
or else are adulterated in order to bring a high rate of profit to 
the makers as well as to the retailers. Even crackers, biscuits, 
snaps, cakes, etc., that are put up in beautifully tempting pack¬ 
ages, are thus covered with chemical vapors; and the breakfast 
foods take the lead in this custom of “embalming” to keep the 
worms out. Jams, jellies, preserves, fruits, canned articles, and 
others of endless enumeration are adulterated, adulterated, adul ¬ 
terated , until it may be said of the “ apothecary-grocer ” that his 
store is the direct road to sickness and death. Meats, milk, drinks, 
medicines and all else that can come within the scope of human 
greed are also doctored. 

As a result of this recent sudden outburst of universal fraud, 
the health of the people is entering upon a state of collapse. Gas¬ 
tric catarrh is almost an epidemic; intestinal catarrh is almost 
an epidemic; la grippe is becoming more malignant each year; 
and the collapse of the whole race is but a question of time' 
and that close at hand , unless the public can be educated to the 
necessity of action. 


CHAPTER TWO 


HoW to Join tlje Club 

AND 


BECOME A RALSTONITE IN GOOD STANDING 


VERY PERSON who believes in good health is a Ral- 
stonite, whether such person ever heard of this club or 
not. There are many Ralstonites in the world who have 
no knowledge of Ralstonism through this organization. 
They are people who believe in good health. They con¬ 
cede that humanity is charged with the duty of treating the body 
as the temple of a precious life, and that the admission of disease 
into this body is doing it violence for which the owner is to be 
held accountable at the bar of judgment, for the time has come 
when indifference to the laws of health is a sin against the Creator 
and a crime against nature. 

The wide-spread debility of the human race, the weakness of the 
vital organs, the multiplicity of diseases, the annual expenditure of 
billions of dollars for medicines, and the enormous growth of the 
medical profession along with the numerical increase of drug 
stores, sanitariums and hospitals everywhere, tell too plainly of 
the present public calamity of universal sickness. 

It is the belief of physicians that the vitality of the human 
body is lower to-day than it has ever been since the dawn of his¬ 
tory. Most people would gladly adopt right methods of living 
if it were possible to know what is best to do. 

The Ralston Health Club furnishes the only plan of living that 
can be safely followed under all circumstances. This method is 

11 










12 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


plain, practical and successful. The proof of this fact is seen in 
the lives of those who have followed the Ralston doctrines for the 
past years; amidst an ever increasing prevalence of sickness in 
towns and cities, the true Ralstonites always escape disease and 
never employ doctors or buy medicines. 

This same fact can be proved in YOUR LIFE. 

It is an ideal existence, to be free from sickness, pain, expense 
and worry. It is within your reach for the asking. This book 
contains the whole story presented as briefly as possible. A 
larger volume would be a hindrance to you. Time is valuable. 
You want facts and guidance that you can read quickly and under¬ 
stand without study. 

Now what shall be done to join the Club ? We have no dues, no 
fees, no expenses with which to tax you. We place no duties on 
you. The only appeal is to your intelligence and good, common 
sense, and this asks you to read the chapters that follow, and then 
choose one of the three Regimes. This comes as near to a duty as 
we are willing to impose, and it is left entirely to your own dis¬ 
cretion. 

The Application for Club Number and VOTE, which you will 
find on page 15 of this chapter, refers to the following Propo¬ 
sition of Health. This you should read many times and very care¬ 
fully ; indeed, you would be benefited by committing it to memory 
so as to be able to quote from it at will. 

PROPOSITION OF HEALTH 

Health is the basis of the best physical development. 

Health is the basis of the best mental powers. 

Health is the basis of a sound nervous system. 

Without health it is impossible to enjoy life, to establish happy 
homes, to win true success, or to give to posterity that inherit¬ 
ance which God commands each generation to guard with 
jealous care. 

The human body is like a garden. It is useless to the world 
when it does not receive proper care, attention and culture at 
the hand of man. Even the Creator will not save the garden 
when man neglects it. 

Duty to self and to the world requires that a reasonable, prac¬ 
tical and sensible REGIME shall be adopted in the life of 
every intelligent human being. All persons who are in favor of 
this proposition will vote YES; and every person who is against 
it, or who does not express an opinion either way, will be 
recorded as voting NO. 


HOW TO JOIN THE CLUB. 


13 


The foregoing PROPOSITION OP HEALTH is the basis of 
membership in the Ralston Health Club, and also determines the 
person’s right to be called a Ralstonite. 

We have no theories to support. 

We began more than twenty-eight years ago with the declara¬ 
tion that we were in search of HONEST FACTS, and the cry 
for more light has been ringing down through all these years. 

We have no pet scheme to foster upon the public. We have no 
silly diet to ask you to indulge in. There is enough of the food of 
the ordinary table, plentiful in all nature, to furnish a thoroughly 
wholesome line of eatables for every man, woman and child on the 
face of the earth, without depriving any one of a share or asking 
any to eat raw grain, nuts, hay or the so-called hygienic foods as a 
chief means of diet. The most welcome fact in the question of 
health is that the people may eat about what they are accustomed 
to, except where tests, experiments, analyses and actual use have 
shown certain articles to be slow poisons or enemies of the human 
system. 

The disregard of the laws of nature is now so reckless and so 
unreasonable that it is necessary to call a halt; or the time is 
close at hand when human life will melt away like a snow flurry 
in July. The discovery of the germs that work in the body during 
the invasion of disease has been followed by the further discovery 
that there must be toxins in the body or the germs will not thrive; 
and this has since been succeeded by the further intelligence that 
the toxins are due to the admission of poisons into the system by 
improper food, drink and erroneous habits of living; and it is now 
well known that the toxins cannot thrive without them. Thus 
ill health is a threefold movement, beginning with the disregard 
of the laws of nature in daily life, and ending with the germs 
whose duty it is to clean up the wanton waste. But to say that the 
germs cause the disease is like saying that oxygen and carbon set 
your house on fire when you held the lighted torch to the heaps 
of shavings which you had brought into the rooms. 

Regime, therefore, is the only method by which the great ques¬ 
tions of ill health can be met at the present day. It is Regime; or 
continued ill health, suffering, expense, loss of time, and prema¬ 
ture death. Which shall it be in your case ? 

If you are in favor of health, then vote that way, and send in 
page 15 from this book. 


14 


THE) RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING APPLICATION. 

1. The Application page at the end of this chapter is to be re¬ 
moved by taking a sharp penknife and cutting the leaf out at the 
dotted line to the left of the blank. This will allow a margin to 
remain in the book on which to fasten the beautifully engraved 
Certificate which is to be sent to you in return. Do not tear or 
injure the margin. 

2. When the Certificate comes, which will be engraved on parch¬ 
ment bond paper, it will be an exact fit if it is properly inserted in 
the book. This you can do by seeing that each edge is on a line 
with the other pages. 

3. When once the Certificate is duly attached, do not remove it 
for any purpose. 

4. See that the Application page is enclosed in a plainly di¬ 
rected envelope, addressed to the Ralston Health Club, Washing¬ 
ton, D. C., and that the same is well sealed. 

5. Care must be taken not to lose page 15 from this chapter, 
as it is the only means whereby you can be identified or your right 
to an Inside Club number established. Therefore it is well, as 
recommended always by the Post Office Department of the United 
States, to write your name and full address in small space at the 
upper lefthand corner of the envelope which you use. 

6. As soon as you get your Certificate showing what your Club 
number is, you ought to take special steps to prevent loss of the 
number, as we cannot find it if you cannot, for we do not have 
any way of knowing your name or address until you send us your 
Club number. You should at once make a private record of the 
number in your poeketbook, and also in some record book or 
other place where it may be found easily in case you lose the book 
in which the Certificate is inserted. 

7. Pill out page 16 if you wish to be classified on our private 
records. This is done solely for our own reference. 

8. Make application at once for the Club number by voting 
early. If you wish to send us a stamped and sealed envelope in 
which to return to you your Club number and Certificate, or to 
enclose any stamps for our use in the cause, they will be welcomed 

. . pa " es 15 and 16 ar e missing from this book when you re¬ 

ceive it, the volume has been tampered with. Return it to the 
person from whom you received it. 


THE CERTIFICATE IS TO BE PASTED TO THIS MARGIN AS SOON AS RECEIVED. 


APPLICATION 

FOR 

LUB fUMBBR 

AND 

VOTE 

On the question of health as presented in Chapter Two. 

To Ralston Health Club, 

1223 to 1231 G St., Washington, D. C. 

I own in my own right and for my exclusive personal use a copy 
of the 93d edition of the book of the Ralston Health Club. I 
have carefully read Chapter Two, and have given special attention 
to the PROPOSITION OF HEALTH which is therein set forth 
to be voted upon; and I deem it my duty to cast my vote in 

FAVOR OF THE SAME. 

In order that I may obtain a Club number and receive Notices, 
Greetings, Reports of Progress and other advantages, I hereby 
apply for admission as an Inside Member in the Ralston Health 
Club, with the understanding that no duties or expense shall be 
involved or incurred. I therefore ask for Club number and Cer¬ 
tificate. 


Name . 

T. O .. 

State . 

Street and Number, if any . 

*** 

[This page must be cut at dotted line on left edge. A copy 
will not do. Do not tear out. Leave margin of leaf for attach¬ 
ing the certificate when it reaches you.] 



15 













Our Private Classification 

Is made for the purpose of enabling us to keep a 
record of each member for our own use. 

All Ralstonites are assigned to divisions, as follows: 
CLASS ONE—Those who have perfect health. 

Have YOU? .. 

CLASS TWO—Those who are free from disease, 

but are of low vitality. Are YOU ?. 

CLASS THREE—Those who are afflicted with some 

malady or disorder. Are YOU?. 

If so, what ?.*. 


In case you send any stamps, coin or other con¬ 
tribution for the cause of Ralstonism, kindly state 
the exact amount in order that credit for same may 
be duly made in our records. . . . [But you are 
under no obligation to contribute if you do not wish 
to do so.] 

SPECIAL TREATMENTS cannot be had unless you 
hold an Inside Membership club-number. There¬ 
fore, if you desire such treatments as per the last 
chapter of this book, you should order same AT THE 
TIME YOU ENCLOSE THIS LEAF, or you should 
wait until you receive the club-number certificate. 

COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP, with its honors and 
advantages, as set forth in the final chapters of this 
book, cannot be had unless you send this leaf with 
your application. 


[If you do not wish to be classified you need 
not answer the questions on this page . Your name 
and full address must be written on the other side 
of this leaf and the form filled out infull^\ 

( 16 ) 









CHAPTER THREE 




Re 


in]e 


THE GOLDEN RULE OF HUMAN AFFAIRS 


HEN" we. refer to Regime as the golden rule of human 
affairs we do not mean to lessen our worship for that 
higher standard known as the golden rule of moral 
conduct. Regime is the supreme guide of health. As 
such we divide it into three grades to suit the needs of 
men and women who are placed on different elevations in the scale 
of health. What is good for one may not be good for another. 

Regime is the rule of care or conduct. It is respect paid to 
order, attention and method. Without it nothing succeeds. Chaos 
is the legitimate fruit of a lack of Regime. The human body is 
the only system in the world or in the universe that has been left 
to itself, and the penalty that now follows this neglect is seen in 
the fearful ravages of disease and the consequent loss of com¬ 
fort, happiness and competence. Man knows very well that he 
would neglect his garden if he could escape the penalty, but as the 
punishment is starvation he sees that he must fight out the weeds, 
the insects, the fungus growth and the many enemies that keep 
him busy with the soil. The roots need air, and every weed that 
is pulled out opens a passage to let in the air. Were there no 
weeds, there would be no weeding, and the vegetables would be 
lost. Pruning, training and shaping of the growth are necessary 
to save the plant or to bring it to its best yield. 

There has never been in this world an instance where Regime 
has been lacking that has not brought on its penalty. The clock- 

17 











18 


THE RALSTON HEARTH CLUB. 


work of the sky is so perfectly adjusted that the millions of orbs 
swing in space with greater harmony and accuracy than any mech¬ 
anism that man could invent. Order, planning and method are 
everywhere in evidence on this earth, and they are the opposite 
conditions of chaos. 

A human being is given to the charge of adults during the first 
years of life; and how badly this duty is fulfilled may be seen from 
the fact that, in every million of children that are born, over five 
hundred thousand die in infancy. Neglect, or ignorance, or un¬ 
willingness to learn, are the causes; and the penalty is borne by 
the innocent babes. It is safe to say that if these human offspring 
were colts or calves, from which man were compelled to earn his 
income, he would find a way to save most of them. Why? Be¬ 
cause in raising stock a Regime or system is necessary, and is 
always adopted. In raising children it has never been adopted 
until Ralstonism has set men and women to thinking. Are human 
offspring as valuable as those of horses and cattle? There are in 
this country to-day ten million parents who would see to it that a 
beast was properly fed and cared for as long as the animal had 
any financial value, and the food taken, the habits allowed, and 
the attention given are the Regime. Here is a wealthy man who 
owns ten fine driving horses, all in perfect condition; and he has 
four sons and five daughters, all in very bad health. He knows 
what and how much his horses eat daily, and he knows that they 
must have certain exercise and certain advantages in the way of 
fresh air, grooming, activities and variety of attention in order 
to keep up their health. Of his nine children he has no thought, 
except to keep them supplied with medicines and doctors. 

If he will adopt as sensible a Regime for his four sons and five 
daughters, he will bring them into as good health as his horses 
en i°y > an d if he were to treat his horses in the way that his sons 
and daughters treat their own health, the animals would be well- 
nigh worthless in six months. Each horse is given special care. 
The value of the drinking water, the wholesomeness of the food 
and the ventilation of the stables are all known to him or those in 
his employ. No risk is taken by exposure to bleak winds when 
heated, and not a moment is lost when the slightest apprehension 
of any disorder arises. 

Why is the owner of a valuable animal more careful of it than 
of his own children? The answer is plain. If the valued animal 


REGIME. 


19 


becomes weak and sickly through lack of Regime, the money value 
is at once reduced or lost; but if the children, having to endure 
neglect of the very kind that would destroy the good of a horse, 
become weak and sickly, they bring no money loss to the family 
unless actual illness ensues. Then, when the penalty has come, 
the fight and the cost begin. 

There has never been a human being on earth, and there will 
never be one, who can defy Regime and not pay the penalty. 
Order and intelligence are as necessary in the plan of living as 
they are in the care of a garden and the protection of a valuable 
animal. Most men do not think there is a penalty for the neglect 
to adopt Regime; and we had the satisfaction of convincing a 
very brainy objector by asking him how many millions of dollars 
were spent each year for doctors? how many for legitimate drugs? 
how many for patent medicines? how many for nurses? how many 
for hospitals? how many for charity to take care of the helpless 
sick? how many for the poorhouse victims who had lost their all 
in the endless struggle to get well? how many for mechanical 
devices and instruments used in medical practice? how many for 
sanitariums where persons who have been indifferent for years 
now spend from twenty to fifty dollars a day? how many are lost 
by enforced idleness? how many are lost by a weakening of the 
vitality and the inability to earn a well man’s salary? how many 
are lost by poor judgment and feeble brain activities that follow ill 
health? and how much of the wealth that properly belongs in the 
home for the care of children has been sacrificed on the altar of 
attempted cures, all of which might have been saved and prevented 
by Regime? 

His pencil was worn out before he had done with his figuring; 
his face was ghastly pale; and he exclaimed, “ When will people 
awaken to the fearful enormity of this sin?” The penalty is 
awful in its severity, and it is becoming more and more terrible 
every year. Diseases are multiplying, suffering is on the increase, 
minds are shattered, and there is no ray of hope in the threatening 
sky as long as humanity will allow the Four Cardinal Enemies of 
Health to chain and bind them into a condition of helpless ser¬ 
vitude to the abuses of the day. 

The command of nature and of the Creator is everywhere at 
hand: 

Regime must be adopted. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


Folir Cardinal Eijenpes of 
Health 


RELISH. CUSTOM. CONVENIENCE. INDIFFERENCE 


? HE ENEMIES of health are the primary causes of 
ill health. 

Science claims that the cause of disease is the 
presence of germs. 

The germs that are active agents in the spread of 
every disease are helpless unless they have food to eat, and their 
food is what is known as toxins. Likewise the fire is helpless un¬ 
less it has carbon to feed upon. 

Disease is like a fire. Two conditions must be present and 
unite. There must be the toxins in the body, and there must be 
the germs to feed upon them. The fire must have carbon to burn 
and oxygen to unite with it in the burning. Remove the oxygen 
and the fire will at once go out. Remore the carbon and leave the 
oxygen and the fire will at once go out. 

No one claims that carbon is the cause of the fire, or that 
oxygen is the cause of the fire; but that both must be present in 
order to make the fire. Nor is it right to claim that the germs 
are the cause of disease, or that the toxins are the cause of the 
disease; the only truth being that both must unite in order to pro¬ 
duce disease. They will find each other in time, just as carbon 
and oxygen find each other in spontaneous combustion. The latter 
can be prevented by a little forethought on the part of man. Your 
20 









FOUR CARDINAL POINTS OF HEALTH. 


21 


house may burn to-morrow if there are any oily rags lying about 
in concealed places. Regime in that line of conduct would prompt 
you to make yourself familiar with the contents of the unused 
portions of your house. An excursion boat may have many hidden 
places in its hold where combustible material may have accumu¬ 
lated; but Regime would have all such parts investigated and 
cleaned out, and this would be far less troublesome than the loss 
of the boat and the odium attached to the murder of a thousand 
helpless passengers. So prevalent and rampant is the spirit of 
taking chances in this country today that there is little genuine 
forethought in the protection of human lives, and the holocausts 
of the Iriquois Theatre and the Slocum disaster are the natural 
results of the spirit of the times. Had the people been brought 
up on some plan of Regime, the better spirit of care and fore¬ 
thought would have averted these calamities. 

Disease is like the escape of the horse from the stable; cures 
are like the hunt for it after the escape; Regime is the forethought 
that made the escape impossible. Let Regime be taught in the 
family and there reverenced; and disaster, public or private, will 
be almost unknown throughout the length and breadth of the 
land. 

The fire that destroyed more than a thousand lives or compelled 
the people to go to watery graves, and the fire that smothered many 
hundreds in a theatre, were the result of the union of carbon and 
oxygen; but there must be a cause precedent in every such disaster. 
The disease that slays millions every year is the result of the 
union of toxins and germs; but there must be a cause back of it 
all. 

Regime is the only prevention. 

The enemies of health are the causes that make Regime seem¬ 
ingly undesirable; although when once understood Regime is 
easier and pleasanter than the haphazard or planless method of 
living. These enemies are four in number and we refer to them 
as the 

FOUR CARDINAL ENEMIES OF HEALTH 

1. RELISH. 

2. CUSTOM. 

3. CONVENIENCE. 

4. INDIFFERENCE. 


CHAPTER FI YE 


Relislj 


THE FIRST CARDINAL ENEMY OF HEALTH 


r ELISH is the agreeable taste of food and liquid that 
passes the palate. It is located solely in the mouth, 
and is not in any way connected with the stomach ex¬ 
cept as an inviting influence. 

There is no subject of common interest in which so 
many errors are made in the public mind as in this alone. There 
is a widespread belief that relish is necessary for the nutritive 
value of food; but there is not the slightest foundation, in fact, for 
this belief. Many thousands of experiments have been made with 
sleeping persons, and with others who are unconscious, as well as 
in the use of the tube, which show that the hunger of the stomach 
is an instinct that is confined solely to that organ, and that relish 
is merely an invitation, just as odor and sight are. Some persons 
who have fought down the relish for whiskey, on seeing the picture 
of a bottle colored so as to seem almost real, as is the case in many 
forms of advertising, have lost all control over their will powers 
and have gone to the nearest saloons for the drink, and have there¬ 
by been plunged into the old-time habits. 

The taste for any food or drink that is pleasing or inviting is 
a relish. Children have a relish for bitter and disagreeable medi¬ 
cines if covered with sugar, and the sugar is all that touches the 
mouth. Men have been known to drink wood alcohol, benzine aDd 
other unnatural forms of liquor, solely to satisfy their relish. 

As soon as children have learned the difference between cake 
and bread, their relish will give cake the preference in every in- 
23 








RELISH. 


23 


stance until sickness nauseates them. In contrast with sweets and 
wholesome food, the relish is for the sweets up to the point where 
the system rejects them; and, when the stomach has become nor¬ 
mal again, the old desire for the sickening foods will prevail, until 
at last the health is undermined. 

In every ten thousand cases where relish has had the choice of 
the selection of what to eat and drink, the results have been that 
less than five cases have followed the rule of wholesomeness. 

The patient just recovering from a fever has a relish for a 
hundred things, every one of which would kill him if he were 
allowed to have his way. Doctors say they have great difficulty in 
curbing the taste of their patients for vicious foods, such as will in 
a majority of instances bring death. Several times have we re¬ 
corded the fact that convalescents have too soon asked for meat; 
they will not take the harmless part of the meat, which is the 
juice, but insist on having the flesh, fiber and all. We could add 
to the record more than three hundred deaths that have followed 
this use of relish as a guide. The last one has been sent to us in 
the following language: “ My husband had passed the crisis of 

the fever in safety, and his four children and myself were made 
happy by the prospect of his return to health. Day before yester¬ 
day he said to the doctor, ‘ Oh, doctor, I have such a keen longing 
for a piece of beefsteak. I am sure it will not hurt me. I would 
relish that more than anything else/ The doctor said that he 
must wait a few days; but he bribed the nurse to bring him a small 
cut of nicely cooked steak, and in three hours he was dead. As 
he rests in the adjoining room I write this to sound a warning to 
those who follow their tastes instead of their judgment.” 

The rule of relish is founded upon the law of “ like attracts 
like.” The condition of the system, especially of the blood, de¬ 
termines what kind of a relish prevails. If a person is loaded 
with toxins, the relish is for foods and drinks that will add to 
those toxins. Poisons attract poisons. Bad blood relishes bad 
food. A disordered stomach wants foods and drinks that are 
poisons or that are seasoned with poisons. Everywhere we see that 
relish springs from a condition within the body and suits itself to 
that condition. 

A person sits down to the morning meal; before him are hot 
rolls and old bread; in ten hundred cases out of every one thou¬ 
sand he will have a relish for the hot rolls. Of course anybody 


24 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


would. The invalid groans because he feels the coming distress 
like a storm in the distance, as he takes the delicious roll, crisp 
and sweetly flavored, and spreads the rich butter upon it. There 
is a combination and a form that will batter down any human 
will. “ Follow relish and you will be safe,” is an old motto. Fol¬ 
low it and you will be safe under the ground, is the true version. 
The hot rolls appeal to and excite relish, and actually set in 
motion the juices that are useful in digestion, but there their 
service ends. If they must enter the mouth, let them be chewed 
and then discarded, not swallowed. Their danger begins when 
they drop into the stomach. They do almost no good at all as food 
in the stomach, but they will give the keenest pleasure to the 
palate. Get the pleasure, but be sensible enough to avoid the dis¬ 
tress. 

A diet of old bread has nothing in it that appeals to the modern 
palate. In the olden times, when bread was properly baked, it 
was as pleasing as cake now is; but with its short bake of to-day and 
its alum for raising, the bread that is old in this era is quite the 
opposite of the honored staff of life of former times. This change 
in conditions has driven men and women to the use of the danger¬ 
ous hot rolls and biscuit that now are most in evidence. The 
remedy is in the manner of baking and making bread, as far as 
this one point is concerned. 

But the use of baking powders has brought a long line of new 
and tempting foods to the table, every one of which appeals to the 
relish, and every one of which is a positive danger to the stomach, 
as we show in another chapter. Here relish leads toward the 
grave. 

Then the prevalence of sickening pastry, derived from the 
French style of cooking, is another appeal to the relish. Who is 
there that does not love the patty, or the pie-crust? It is present 
now not only in dessert, but in connection with the meat courses. 
There are oyster patties, chicken patties, veal patties, and countless 
other kinds, not one of which can be eaten, nor even a mouthful 
taken, without danger to the digestive apparatus; yet they are very 
tempting, and the child or the adult would give them first choice 
as between such stuff and the plain and wholesome articles of 
food. Modern cooking is slow suicide. 

The frying of flour and butter and grains, in addition to the use 
of fried food as a dessert and as a main meal, has gained ground 


RELISH. 


25 


very rapidly of late years. Fried surfaces that are crisp are 
always totally indigestible; and the man or woman never lived who 
could digest a particle of them; yet when they are not crisp they 
do not appeal to the relish. You have a decided preference for 
the Saratoga chips over all other form of potatoes, yet you could 
live for years on boiled potatoes, and could not live three days on 
Saratoga chips. The crisp grease that is fried hard contains semi¬ 
crystals that irritate the stomach and the liver. It is almost as 
safe to eat glass or pins as to indulge in a diet of crisply fried 
meats, potatoes, fritters, etc. Yet the relish is increased in pro¬ 
portion as the surface is fried crisp; and this proves that relish is 
the enemy of life. 

An adult is a child in the matter of relish. A child will kill 
itself eating the dangerous foods if left to its own choice. The 
adult follows the same impulse, and is held in check only by 
some past bitter experience. The other day a lady clerk said, “ I 
will run out and get a lunch. I do not eat much, hut what I eat 
must be what I relish. I do not have any faith in the idea that I 
ought to eat what I do not relish, and discard what I do have a 
longing for. Eelish is the key to health.” She took fried oysters, 
pickles, coffee and some pie. The coffee was the only part of the 
lunch that had any element of value; all the rest was directly 
poisonous. This lunch remained in her stomach for twenty-four 
hours, and then was thrown up. She was sick in bed for three 
weeks, lost her salary for that time, had doctors’ bills to pay, and 
suffered untold agony for a long time. Now, had she eaten what 
she could have ascertained was wholesome, she would have saved 
all these misfortunes. Eelish is a positive invitation to do the 
wrong thing in selecting food. 

At the breakfast table the relish demands pancakes, fried pota¬ 
toes, crullers, waffles, and all such articles: all sure to do their little 
part toward deranging the stomach. There is not one breakfast 
in a thousand in this country that is wholesome, because the food is 
cooked on the basis of pleasing the relish and not benefiting the 
system. 

It is true that, if a person actually relishes what is eaten, it is 
a decided advantage up to a certain point, but not beyond the 
point of moderate eating. Most persons eat two and three times 
more than the body needs, and relish is apt to cause over-indul¬ 
gence in eating. 


26 THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

Let us see if we can make these apparent contradictions har¬ 
monize. 

1. Relish is not a safe guide when it leads persons to select in¬ 
jurious food in preference to that which is beneficial. 

2. If what is eaten could be relished it would be an immense 
advantage to the person eating it. 

The solution is this: If the taste for wholesome food could 
be cultivated up to the point where it could be relished, then it 
would be an advantage. Or, in other words, learn to relish that 
which is beneficial; and build up a strong will-power capable of 
fighting down the desire for the sickly temptations that every¬ 
where abound. 

The man or woman who possesses enough personal magnetism to 
win his or her way in the world will be able to withstand the 
temptations of modern cooking and will thereby escape their 
penalties. 

It is one of the direct purposes of this book to show the way to 
do this; and more, to inculcate in every one of our members the 
relish for foods that are useful and beneficial, and a positive dis¬ 
like for those that are the enemies of life. 

Physicians agree with us in these propositions. They say that 
one of their most common experiences is that in which it is neces¬ 
sary for them to seem to agree with the claims of their patients that 
what is relished ought to be eaten in preference to the whole¬ 
some foods, but that they meet the contingency by making a list 
of the forbidden and the allowable foods; and after a while the 
patients learn to relish certain of the latter class. 

It is not a difficult task to make wholesome food palatable and 
tempting to the public. When a person is sick the value and im¬ 
portance of preparing every article in an attractive manner are 
well understood by doctors and attendants. But who would pre¬ 
tend that it is wise to offer unwholesome food to a sick person on 
the ground that it is more inviting than the wholesome kinds ? If, 
in sickness, it is possible to exercise care in the cooking and serving 
of food, and thereby make the healthful articles palatable, it is 
equally true that the same results could be reached in all cases. 

It should not be said that sickness compels people to be careful; 
and health allows them to be absolutely indifferent. Skill along 
the lines of common sense is needed, and it must begin with the 
cook. 


CHAPTER SIX 

... . 


Custom 


THE SECOND CARDINAL ENEMY OF HEALTH 


HAT is cardinal which is the first or prime cause, not 
the final and direct cause of a thing. 

Custom includes style, fashion, or prevailing meth¬ 
ods, and applies to any or all departments of life. 

It is not by any means easy to change the fixed 
habits of the people, even if they are known to be altogether 
wrong; and we shall not attempt the task. The next best thing 
to do is to adjust our Regime to the conditions as we find them. 

But, feeling certain that some day the customs of the people 
will harmonize with the demands of health, we make bold to men¬ 
tion a few of the tendencies that are most out of joint with nature. 

It would be useless to talk upon the great purpose of the shift¬ 
ing seasons. No one would be moved by the facts, although they 
might be willing to accept them as facts; and there are some 
persons so well uninformed as to challenge the plan of nature and 
deny its efficacy. 

One of the useless topics of this age is the influence of the early 
day in the months of spring and summer. From the first of 
March to the last of September, which covers more than the spring 
and summer, the processions of the mornings are marvelous. 
Change and variety are adapted to the nervous system, to the 
mind and to the general health; while sameness is detrimental. 
All humanity is part of the life of the natural world from which it 

27 









28 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


springs and by which it is fed; and this outside life moves with 
the processions of the mornings. It is not best to rise at a fixed 
hour every day, nor to retire at about the same time. The old 
theory is not the best. There are but two fixed hours in the calen¬ 
dar; one at high noon, and the other at midnight. From these 
two points of time nature is always moving away or else is seek¬ 
ing to return to them. Vitality is the source of all health, and this 
‘ is as true of humanity as of flowers, plants and animals; and all 
flowers, plants and animals seek to awaken with the sun the year 
round. Florists know very well that when plants are sickly the. 
sun bath in the first hours of the morning any day in the year 
will revive them when all other care has failed. 

We are not advising you to get up with the sun, for you will 
not do it. We have, in some cases, where the treatment given by 
doctors has utterly failed, advised persons to try to get in touch 
with the morning changes, and the results have been surprising. 

Some day it will be the custom of the people to work less and 
live more. They will then learn that the single period of sleep 
in the vital months from March to the last of September is not 
natural; but that there should be two periods of sleep in every 
twenty-four hours. A person can do three times the mental work 
or the physical labor who has two periods of sleep in place of one. 
If there be but one, then it must be from eight to ten hours, ac¬ 
cording to the age and condition of the individual. If there 
are two periods of sleep, then the longer need be only four to 
six hours, and the shorter only one. The vitality is increased to 
a remarkable degree by this method. In times of excessively hard 
work it is necessary to sleep ten per cent, longer than when life is 
going along at an average pace; and sickly persons, infants and 
aged people need even more than this. 

The sun rises at six in March and in September at about the 
end of the third week; so that there is not much to worry about in 
the question of early rising. A minute or so prior to six on the 
first of April and the last of August is not a great task for the 
riser. But, centering both ways to the end of the third week of 
June, the sun is higher, minute by minute, and the person who 
lies in bed during these most vital hours is losing strength of a 
nature that cannot be readily supplied from any other source. 
There is no substitute in the growth of plants, and the same laws 
apply to all life. 


CUSTOM. 


29 


It is a glorious thing to be up with the sun and be a part of all 
the life that abounds. The experience is most pleasing. The 
variety is of itself wonderful. There is growth in the very air. 
The spark of life, the living principle, is everywhere at work on 
all subjects that come within its range. An early meal, and busi¬ 
ness hours to follow, or toil to take its place in the cooler portion 
of the heated term, with a mid-forenoon dinner, say at nine or ten 
o’clock, then rest and relaxation for a few hours, with an early 
afternoon siesta, followed by a light lunch, and more rest, fol¬ 
lowed by work, business, etc., until late into the evening, then 
supper, and a long period of open life in the night: this will be 
the plan of the future. It saves the brain and nervous system 
from the severe tax of the present era, which makes men and 
women slaves to custom, and compels them to do their hardest 
mental and physical work in the hottest hours of the day, when 
plants are most prone to wilt. The early morning and the late 
evening are logical periods for such labor, while noon is a 
time for ease and rest. 

This plan suits the summer months and those that fringe 
them. In winter the present customs are nearly right. The 
taking of a vacation in summer is a serious business, for hotel life 
is conducted on the same heavy basis as in winter, and the hours 
are fixed by custom to be the same as in winter. Some day there 
will be hotels and boarding houses that will follow the processions 
of the mornings, and the announcement will be sounded through 
them that the rising bell will ring forty minutes before sunrise, 
and the breakfast will occur five minutes after the sun is up. This 
will give a new moment each morning to the first meal, and that 
much variety will at least be assured. A summer daily bath just be¬ 
fore the afternoon meal will be beneficial as well as refreshing. It 
may precede or follow the afternoon siesta. The questions of in¬ 
sects and other drawbacks to summering places will be settled. 
We live in the country six months in every year, and have never 
yet had the slightest trouble with insects, dampness, malaria, or 
any of the so-called objections to early morning or late evening 
life. We have slept in the open many nights and had the stars 
for books to read us to slumber. When the open months are 
properly taken advantage of the rest of the year will take care of 
itself. 

But these things cannot be taught. Custom forbids. 


30 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Another barrier to the recovery of health is the habit of eating 
a light breakfast, a slight lunch at midday, and a heavy supper. 

There used to be an old theory to the effect that the loss of 
strength during the hours of the day should be compensated for 
while the body is asleep at night. The reply to this is, that the 
people who work hard enough during the day to lose much 
strength thereby are pretty sure to eat a bountiful breakfast if 
it is to be had; and those who eat their heaviest meal at supper or 
at the evening dinner are not hard workers. On the other hand, 
they are sedentary people who have no appetite in the morning, 
and who will eat at the time when their appetite invites them. 
Then comes the principle that, if you eat heavily at the evening 
meal, you will not have a morning appetite the next day, for you 
load the system with food that cannot be disposed of during the 
hours of sleep. The average evening dinner, or the meal that 
sedentary people eat somewhere between three o’clock in the after¬ 
noon and seven or eight in the evening, consists largely of meats, 
heavy diet, rich viands, and tempting desserts; all of them being 
much too heavy for working man, and far too oppressive for the 
sedentary person. Yet such meals are eaten, and seasonings are 
applied to make them appetizing, thus tempting the eater to over¬ 
indulge. There can be but one result; it may not come at once; 
it may be weeks or months in undermining the health; but it 
will come without fail. Then stimulants, medicines, nerve-dead- 
eners and the whole art of medical practice must be called into 
requisition. A heavy evening meal clogs the system of the man 
or woman who eats it, whether sedentary or not; the stomach and 
liver refuse to take up the process of digestion the next morning, 
and there is then no appetite for the best meal of the whole 
twenty-four hours, the meal that precedes the day’s activities. 
The omission of breakfast, the dull headache of the noon, and the 
lack of proper nutrition end at evening again with the desire for 
another heavy meal; and the sufferer argues with self that the 
time to eat is when one is hungry. Sleep is disturbed, for the 
muscle-making food of a heavy evening meal racks the nerves all 
night long even if sleep seems sound. Let the person who is 
hungry at evening and who is not hungry at morning omit the 
evening meals, and the appetite for breakfast will soon be keen and 
voracious. We have a record of eleven thousand cases to prove 
this fact. 


CUSTOM. 


31 


Custom forbids that the proper order of meals should be ob¬ 
served. 

The practice of giving elaborate evening dinners is always the 
forerunner of the many D’s; such as distress, danger, doctors, 
drugs, disease, debt and death. There is as much common sense 
in them as in sending invitations to friends to come and eat broken 
glass and drink diluted vitriol. Some day, when the sober second 
thought of the advance ranks of civilization has had an oppor¬ 
tunity to think the matter over, it will heap ridicule and shame 
upon the present era of reckless silliness. What is gained by 
tempting acquaintances who are on your visiting list to gorge 
themselves with the most dangerous forms of distress, when there 
is not one of them who has a decent stomach or a liver that is able 
to act for itself? 

Custom certainly does some idiotic things. 

Style is a part of custom. It is often directly opposed to the 
laws of health. The practice of uncovering the neck and the 
upper part of the chest, the very portions of the body that need 
care and protection, has sent more than a million women to their 
graves, and in this country alone. Men also expose themselves 
to the cold temperatures of night insufficiently clad when they 
are dressed for some swell affair. Little girls, whose ages vary 
from five to twelve, are made to wear dresses that do not dress 
them; the legs being left without sufficient protection from the 
ankles up to the thighs. Not one of the dresses is long enough to 
permit them to be sat upon. It is like asking a woman to remove 
her dress and all her skirts when she wishes to sit down. Yet these 
little girls are compelled to sit upon cold chairs, chilled seats in 
carriages, benches, etc., with no part of their dresses under them, 
and only the thin undergarment between the body and the surface 
of the chair or other seat. 

This habit of leaving almost the entire length of the legs ex¬ 
posed is well established by style, and a child that wore a dress of 
proper length would be out of fashion and would probably be 
laughed at; but it is style only, for there was a more enlightened 
period some years ago when the dresses were allowed to come to 
the knees or lower, as is now the style with other nations. The 
prevailing American custom is gathered from the fastidious French, 
who love to set up styles that will be talked about. It is sending 
many children to untimely graves. But it is the fashion. 


32 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


The Easter display of dressing has led millions of women to 
appear too thinly clad; they cannot resist the desire to appear in 
public with their new clothes, and it would be a shame to ask 
them to wear cloaks or sacks when the thermometer is down al¬ 
most to freezing; and so they show themselves, and many of them 
take to their beds afterwards. The doctors and the druggists reap 
a rich harvest from the custom. 

The slipper habit is also dangerous. It is a good habit to wear 
slippers if done consistently. But the ankles that are used to 
high shoes part of the time will not endure slippers at any time, 
except in the great heat of summer. It is the same with neck- 
protection ; if the neck has been covered at all, it is dangerous to 
uncover it at any time, except when the heat is great. The ankle 
and upper part of the foot are great evaporators of perspiration, 
and are consequently sensitive. They must either be exposed all 
the time or else not at all, if there is the least bit of draft or chill 
in the air. Colds are caught quickly by the habit of wearing 
shoes or boots by day and slippers in the evening. Dancers al¬ 
most always have perpetual colds and catarrhs. 

The fond mothers who do not wish their daughters to get a 
healthy tan on the face compel them to wear veils; and any 
wearer of veils soon loses the focus of the eyes, and the sight begins 
to fail. Glasses are then prescribed. While this is not always 
true, it is generally so. An optician said he followed the history 
of girls and young women who were addicted to the constant use 
of veils, and found them his most lucrative customers. 

The habit of sitting under fans in theatres, offices, restaurants 
and other places, where a current of cool air is sent directly upon 
the top of the head, has done more to establish facial neuralgia and 
headaches than any other cause. We have verified accounts of 
sixty cases where paralysis has followed this most dangerous cus¬ 
tom. Likewise the practice of opening a car window for air and 
throwing the moving stream of outdoor air in upon the occupants 
of the seat next behind. People who hurry for cars in summer 
time are over-heated, and they must have air at all hazards; there¬ 
fore they throw open the window and give the breeze to the persons 
behind them. Paralysis has followed this custom. 

The methods of ventilating halls and theatres are as nearly 
criminal as can be. We have seen hundreds of churches ven¬ 
tilated by opening windows directly over the heads of people, and 


CUSTOM. 


some open the lower sashes at the side of people, but insert 
patent devices for throwing the icy air upward on the supposi¬ 
tion that it will not fall if it is started upward. Such means 
of getting fresh air have caused hundreds of thousands of cases 
of pneumonia and many untimely deaths. Recently two mothers 
took their children to a church; the wind blew across both par¬ 
ties ; one mother had the sense to leave at once with her children; 
the other mother said to a friend, “ I guess that woman is afraid 
of a little fresh air. It is surprising how cranky some folks are.” 
The mother who said this buried both her children in two weeks, 
and the other mother escaped all penalty for herself and little 
ones. Now one home is black with agonized grief, and the other 
is filled with health. That lucky mother was a Ralstonite and 
was obeying instructions when she left the building to avoid the 
chilling wind. 

Cooling a warm body in any temperature, by sitting in a blow¬ 
ing wind, is not safe. Many persons, the moment they get heated, 
fly to some open window and sit in the draft until they get 
cooled off. This should be studied before it is permitted; that is, 
the ability of the body to stand any draft should be known in ad¬ 
vance of the exposure. It is a rule of health that the sudden 
checking of perspiration in summer or winter will shut up the 
poisons in the skin that were tending outward and thus lead to 
sickness. 

The custom of living in the sleeping room is bad; the room 
should be used only for sleeping purposes, and should be kept 
open to the air and light all day long if possible. Likewise the 
custom of wearing by day the clothing that has been next to the 
skin all night is a direct cause of keeping the body weak. Cus¬ 
tom is so fixed that this change will not be hoped for. It is not 
so much the expense as the indifference to the subject that 
deters people from having a complete change of apparel next 
the skin from night to day and from day to night. The under¬ 
garment may be thin and light, and can be washed in a minute, as 
the only need is to remove the poisons that have exuded upon it 
during the night or day. 

In another part of this book it will be seen that there are 
certain pores of the body that are closely related to the plan of 
excretion; they are akin to the kidneys and the intestinal canal, 
and are intended by nature to take away the accumulation of 


34 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


poisons from the body. These are the pores of the lower legs 
and feet. The moment a person stands in a tub of water, these- 
excretions fly out and diffuse all through the water. The action 
is instantaneous. This can be readily proved by a chemical analy¬ 
sis of the water. The modern way of bathing is to prepare the 
water in the tub by mixing the hot and cold until the temperature 
is agreeable, then getting in the water, and bathing the whole 
body with the excretions that come from the feet and lower 
legs. Of course there is no intention of doing this; but it is. 
done. The excuse is that the excretions are so slight that they 
do not amount to anything, but they are not slight. Then another 
excuse is that the body is to be thoroughly rinsed; but why rinse 
it after the absorbent pores of the chest and upper half of the 
body have drank the excretions from the feet and lower legs ? 
The makers of bathtubs of late years, desiring to ape the French 
and to produce some new ideas, have put in separate bibbs or fau¬ 
cets, which compel the bathers now to bathe in their own excre¬ 
tions. The sellers of these abnormal bathtubs cry cranks at those- 
who do not like them; but let the experiment be tried of bathing, 
in clean water from a double-bibb, and bathing in one’s own ex¬ 
cretions, and the difference in health may at once be noticed, all 
other things being equal. Here is where style or fashion defies; 
health. We called upon a wholesale plumber not long ago and 
spoke of the matter to him. He thought that if the body was 
rinsed after the bathing, all the excretions would be washed away. 
We then asked him if he would be willing to bathe his face, 
neck, arms, chest and upper half of the body which contained the 
absorbent pores in the water that John Smith had soaked his 
feet, legs and middle of his body in; and the plumber said that 
he would not do it for a thousand dollars. 

But what is the difference? 

Another bad and foul custom is that of allowing the vessel that 
contains the excretions of the bladder to remain uncovered under 
the bed all night, or in the stand. The uncovering of it for even 
a minute fills the air with the volatile poisons that cause a 
derangement of the blood. The breath is made rank and fearfully 
putrid by morning where this evaporation is inhaled all night. 
Yet the custom is so universal that, as a physician recently said, 
there is not more than two homes in a hundred where this vile 
practice is not permitted. From the inhalations of the floating 


CUSTOM. 


35 


urea come the very disorders of the system that lead to uric acid 
poisoning and the long train of suffering. 

The custom of allowing two or more persons to use the same 
towel is not cleanly, and at times it is directly unsafe. The same 
thing may be said of using the same comb and hairbrush for two 
or more heads; a common toothbrush is just as advisable, yet 
sentiment and not health steps in and prevents the latter. 

The swapping of microbes by the custom of promiscuous kiss¬ 
ing has carried consumption, typhoid and especially diptheria 
from mouth to mouth. It is well known that some persons are 
immune from the very germs which they carry about them; they 
may not be afflicted with the diseases that they transmit to 
others. Children are much more sensitive than adults, and are 
more kissed; hence they are oftener the victims of this custom. 

Another most dangerous custom, and one that slowly saps the 
life out of children, is the practice of sleeping in the arms of an 
adult, generally the mother. In the first place, let some investi¬ 
gator come against the breath of the mother in the morning be¬ 
fore she has rinsed and perfumed her mouth, and then it will be 
seen what kind of air has been poured into the lungs of the child 
all night long. Even the sweetest and purest breath is not fit for 
another human being to inhale; it is most unhygienic for one 
person to place the mouth in front of another person’s mouth and 
take in the dead air that is exhaled, even assuming it to be free 
from the putrid odor of the early morning. But there are children 
who get no other air all night long, as they lie in the arms of 
others, and then the parents wonder why their health droops and 
the little ones must go from earth. It is not considered good for 
the welfare of children to be under the same covers as grown 
persons, as the perspiration of the latter gives out excretions that 
the younger skin absorbs. 

It is the duty of adults to protect the health of children. 

The use of the eyes when the stomach is empty is a bad custom. 
The tax on the optic nerve is severe when there is no food in the 
stomach to call away the flush of blood and the vital fluids; and 
these are forced upon the more delicate organic structure, with the 
result that eye-strain follows. The same is true when one reads 
lying down on the back or side; or in moving cars; or in the 
dim light; or with a strong light in front of the eyes; all these 
habits bring on trouble with the best of all organs of-sense. 


36 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


The custom of taking candy when it tastes the best, which is on 
an empty stomach, does injury to that organ, and to the liver and 
the kidneys. The use of pure candy under certain restrictions 
is beneficial, but only when there is plenty of wholesome food in 
the stomach. The same is true of any very sweet fruit. But 
cake and pastry are never allowable under any circumstances, and 
to take them when the stomach is empty is a greater wrong to the 
health than the habit of eating candy. It is a common thing for 
girls and women, driven candy-hungry by the longing for food, to 
indulge in confectionery just before the evening meal; and then 
they pose as delicate or in dainty weakness of stomach by being 
unable to eat a good supper. We met such a girl not long ago. 
Her mother had noticed that “Annie had not been in good health 
this spring.” So the fond parent had made tempting dishes to 
arouse an appetite, but “Annie was getting so delicate that she 
did not eat enough to keep a bird-alive. The doctor must be 
seen.” A little investigation showed that Annie had kept a con¬ 
stant supply of candy on hand, and when the afternoon drew to a 
close she found herself so “awfully hungry that she could not 
wait for the supper hour and ate a half pound of candy on an 
empty stomach.” This habit had grown on her. When she took 
a mid-afternoon lunch of wholesome food to gratify that “awful 
appetite ” it was found that, even then, she could eat enough at 
supper to keep fifty birds alive. The delicacy has passed off. The 
doctor was not needed. If some of our readers will watch the 
store girls on their way home at the close of their day’s work any 
time of the year, they will see these angels plunging into candy 
stores, and eating the sweets that sicken the stomach, so 
that when they get home they have a very indifferent appetite for 
the wholesome food of the evening meal. The girls will not con¬ 
fess that they have eaten candy on an empty stomach, and so 
their parents become alarmed at the prospect of failing health. 
The skin is yellow, and needs powder to bring it to an attractive 
color; the breath gets foul; teeth rot; the stomach begins to give 
out; and the anticipated sickness comes at last. The Ralston rule 
is this: Eat pure candy only; and never eat it except when there 
is an abundance of good food in the stomach. 

We have mentioned some of the customs that are a menace to 
the health. More might be added, but they are almost endless. 

Other enemies remain. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


Convenience 


THE THIRD CARDINAL ENEMY OF HEALTH 


a NDER this title we might write a large volume of facts. 

It is enough for the present work if we merely touch 
upon the salient points involved, and let the reader 
think out the rest. 

It is an agreed state of things that the well known 
laws of health are not given attention in the home, because of the 
convenience of conditions that favor their neglect. 

The conveniences of life are the details that make less work and 
bring more comfort. This is as it should be. We do not believe 
in the slavery of the human body in order to accomplish a mass of 
hard labor the end of which can be nothing more than keeping 
body and soul together under the least annoying circumstances. 

The man who toiled in the olden time sought food, shelter, 
clothing, and some pleasure for himself and those dependent upon 
him. When a poor man seeks to do all this to-day, he considers 
himself fortunate if he succeeds. Yet imagine, if you will, any 
unborn soul standing on the verge of life, to whom is offered a 
period of eighty years’ existence on earth; and he asks: “What 
for?” What answer could you give him? 

Let this soul have the choice between remaining in oblivion all 
unconscious of affairs, or let him be allowed to come into the 
world and here exist for eighty years: have you any inducement 
to offer him? He may rightly ask what for? Or, why should he 
come upon the earth to live ? And you may rightly tell him that 
he will be born in pain and will in all probability die in 

37 













38 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


pain; he will pass through the dangers of helpless infancy to 
the sadness of older life; he will see his father and mother 
laid to rest amid tears; he will note the dropping away, one 
by one, of those who have been his companions in youth; he 
will see the wrangling of the people about him, the hatred, lawless¬ 
ness, crime, and fearful struggle of the masses to get their living; 
he will work and think and plan and plot for the mere purpose of 
acquiring enough to keep him from want, and will find watchful 
eyes looking with criminal gaze at all he attains, ready to wrest it 
from him by stealth or murder. Such is the world. Along the 
pathway of life is one endless trail of suffering, blood and brood¬ 
ing, gloomy disappointment. He would indeed be brave who 
would choose to live in it. If his life has been a success from the 
standpoint of earth, he has done nothing more than win his food, 
shelter, clothing and fleeting, empty pleasures; and these for the 
handful who depend upon him. Not three persons in a hundred 
do as much. It is a hard thing to get through the world. 

The great burden of life is not the fault of nature or of the 
Creator, but of the human race itself. They seek conveniences, 
but only when they can be had at their convenience. They seek 
improvement, but only when it can be had at their convenience. 

The ideal life on earth is possible to all persons who can be 
termed intelligent. The stupid, wormy man or woman can never 
find life worth living. The bright mind is found in every class; 
as often among the lowly as in other ranks; and such a mind has 
it in its power to reap the rich harvest of content and happiness; 
but such procedure does not suit its convenience. 

City life is not the best; and a city home is in no wise a home; 
although it is so called. The dirty streets that reek with the 
offal of animals; the germ-laden dust that fills the air; the close 
structures that have light only at the ends; the dark cellars; the 
gardenless plot; the artificial foods; the narrowness of view; all 
these cramp the mind and seal up forever the majority of those 
brain-cells out of which spring the sources of happiness and con¬ 
tent. The mind is the key of life. It holds brain-cells that give 
content and happiness; let such parts of its structure be atro¬ 
phied by lack of development through use, and the morbid, sui¬ 
cidal, gloomy, morose, despondent moods prevail. This fact has 
been tested in the past thirty years, and is open to investigation 
and proof by any one who wishes to meet with personal experi- 


CONVENIENCE. 


39 


ences as they abound in the lives of millions of humanity. As the 
mind is the fountain-head of health and happiness, there is no 
plan of living that can rise higher than the culture and develop¬ 
ment of all its departments of usefulness. An all-round line of 
activities will unfold the mind. The child that has few attrac¬ 
tions and no playthings will grow up into a narrow and dangerous 
character. If you stimulate in any mind a great variety of mental 
interests, each in balance and harmony with the others, you will 
make the whole being a much more exalted one. City life for¬ 
bids that this shall be done. There is much more monotony in the 
city than in the country, provided city conveniences are brought 
into conjunction with country life, as is the case in more than two 
millions of homes to-day. 

But the business man says it is not convenient; for he must live 
where his business is. The professional man says it is not con¬ 
venient, and for the same reason. The woman of dress and 
fashion does not wish to go so far away from the centers of dress 
and fashion, although she is more admired in the open world than 
in the grave-vaulted city. 

Children brought up in the confines of city life do not, in more 
than one case in a century, become leaders of men. The great 
men of the past, of the present, and of the future, are and will 
always be the product of the open life. The city cannot unfold 
the mental powers enough to make the mold of greatness. 

The lawns, the shade trees, the flower-beds, the orchards, the 
gardens, the brooks, the fountains, the singing birds, the pure air, 
the flight of clouds, the crimson sunset sky, the morning paradise, 
and all the marvelous operations of nature, are rich stimulants to 
the view, and are stirring attractions to the mind. The author 
was led from city life to that of the country by the doctrines which 
he himself teaches; and he lives through the months of the open 
seasons amid the most fascinating surroundings. What was a 
barren cornfield in 1896 is now an earthly Garden of Eden, and is 
said to be the most beautiful home grounds on the continent of 
America. The expense was slight, considering the wonderful 
change that has been wrought over the face of nature. We make 
this statement to show that we live up to the doctrines that we 
teach. The principle is that there should be windows and open 
land on the four sides of every house, the rooms should suit the 
laws of health as to their location, and there should be products 


: 40 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


. from the garden ready to pass freshly gathered to the table. A 
small piece of land would give a living to a thrifty man. It was 
so in the olden days. 

Not only in the matter of country life combined with city con¬ 
veniences, but also in a thousand or more other matters, will the 
question of convenience arise. Foods that are pure should be had 
as fresh as possible; but it is not convenient to raise or produce 
them. Much longer than you will live, milk and eggs will be the 
chief articles of food for the human family, in conjunction with 
wheat; but you cannot find any convenient way of getting the 
eggs that are known to be fresh and the product of cleanly-fed 
hens; nor can you find it convenient to get pure milk from a 
healthy cow. Yet life has hinged many a time on the quality of 
these ingredients. 

It is a law of life and health that the clothing should suit the 
changing nature of the temperature; but it is inconvenient to 
keep a line of underwear that is graded to the many tempera¬ 
tures of spring. A recent death in Chicago of a well known 
society lady who had been held up as an example of a robust woman 
of that city, was due to the fact that she had on clothing that 
was suited to the south wind that was blowing across the State; but 
when the breeze shifted and came from the lake, she was chilly, 
but it did not suit her convenience to put on heavier clothing. She 
waited until night came, and deemed that a more convenient 
period. The practice of taking off winter clothing too soon is 
the cause of much sickness; instead of donning the lighter dress 
or wraps or underwear for the warm hours only, people keep them 
on throughout the whole day and evening, after the temperature 
has fallen decidedly. The old adage, “ Wear your winter cloth¬ 
ing in spring and you will not catch cold,” has some meaning in 
it, crude though it may be. 

The unhealthful hours of eating represent the extent to which 
the question of convenience will carry a people. The noon meal is 
shifted to evening because business and the program of daily life 
make it very difficult to arrange the meals according to the old- 
fashioned plan of eating heavily at noon and lightly at evening. 

The subject of convenience is endless, and we will leave it to the 
study of our readers to enlarge. But when the question of what 
is best for the health comes up, it is almost invariably confronted 
by the proposition that it is not convenient. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 
_ 


Indifference 


THE FOURTH CARDINAL ENEMY OF HEALTH 


VERY species of creation has its prevailing trait of 
character, and indifference is that particular trait which 
most denotes the human mind. 

It is not to be charged as a fault, for it is inborn and 
inherent. No one acquires indifference; it is some¬ 
times overcome by a high grade of development; but it fixes itself 
upon all classes regardless of education or mental power. 

The banker who is trained to look carefully after the details of a 
great institution is just as much given to this trait as is the lowli¬ 
est of mankind. The business man who piles up great wealth 
by his shrewdness is not able to shake off the trait of indifference 
in general affairs. The college professor, who is supposed to set 
an example of the high ideals of life is yet the victim of the very 
trait that keeps civilization in the mire. The highest forms of 
intelligence are subject to its sway, as well as the lowest. 

There are a few motives in life that operate against the display 
of the trait of indifference. One is the motive for appetite. An¬ 
other is the motive for pleasure. The third is the motive for gain. 
A fourth may be said to be the motive for passion. When these 
are strong in their influence over the human mind the trait of 
indifference generally bends and yields; but the motive for health, 
for long life, for success, for safety against disaster, and for 
moral gain, will never outrank the trait of indifference,, except 
in the few cases where the man or woman has a keen intuition of 
the coming dangers. 











42 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Indifference is the twin-sister of risk. The two are boon com¬ 
panions as well as close relations. 

As an instance of what we mean, it may be stated as a fact 
easily proved that there are not four wells in a hundred in this 
country that are free from dangerous germs of disease; nor are 
the drinking water systems of the land safe in a majority of cases. 
One day last winter there were twelve funerals from typhoid in one 
ward of one city; and it was known that the malady came from the 
use of well water; but the wells are still in use and the disease is 
mowing down its victims with unfailing regularity. A man of the 
highest intelligence, who knew that the water was not safe to 
drink, took some and gave some to his boy; both died from the 
effects of it. As the man lay in the hospital to which he had been 
taken by request in the hope that he would receive the best at¬ 
tention, he repeated the account of his foolhardiness, and said that 
he was thirsty and thought the water safe enough at least to take 
chances on it. In the State of Delaware, a mother who had three 
sons was told plainly that the well-water was charged with the 
germs of typhoid, but she said they had always used it, and she 
could not see why it had not killed other people. The germs had 
come to it by infection from a long distance, and the movement of 
the danger had been slow but steady. A Ralstonite who had 
watched the advance of the column of death examined the well and 
reported to her. It seemed that the constitution of herself and 
family was good; but a cousin who had visited them drank the 
water and died of typhoid. Still no heed was paid to the warn¬ 
ing. She took her chances. Since then the malady has visited 
her home and all four have been laid to rest. We have reports 
from two thousand four hundred such cases where warnings have 
been given in advance of the unsafe condition of the drinking 
water, and no attention has been paid to it, not after the accumu¬ 
lated deaths any more than before. We recorded the case of a 
father who would have given his life to have saved that of his 
daughter, but who lost her after being warned that his well was 
full of dangerous germs, and since then he has married, and the 
old well still remains. Three relations have visited him, and two 
have had typhoid, one having died from it, and at this writing 
his second wife is sick from typhoid". He writes, “ It seems as 
though we had been followed by some curse.” He has been told 
that the well is the curse and his indifference is the support of 


indifference. 


43 


the danger; but he says that he drinks the water and finds it all 
right. The day will come when his system will be in a condition 
that will just suit the invasion of the typhoid germs, and he will 
then follow the rest. It is true that some persons are immune; but 
would any person take the chances, even though they were but one 
in a million, were it not for the inborn trait of indifference ? It is a 
fact that ninety per cent, of the drinking water of America is un¬ 
safe to drink; some because of germs, some because of calcareous 
contents, and some because of injurious minerals; but the people 
take their chances, and when disease comes they doctor the malady, 
suffer on, and give no heed to the cause. 

Milk and eggs are bound to be staple needs of the table for 
many years to come. The milk in use is unsafe because of the 
disposition of dairymen to adulterate it, especially with chemicals 
that are intended to keep it from souring; and the public knows 
that these chemicals are destroying many thousands of lives every 
year. They also know that nine out of every ten of the milk¬ 
men would go on adulterating the milk, even if they killed a 
million children annually. It is said that ninety per cent, of the 
dairymen and milk dealers would not be touched in conscience if 
they had positive knowledge that they slew each year by their de¬ 
ception more lives than had been sacrificed in all the wars for 
the past thousand years; provided nothing was done to punish 
them. An-intelligent farmer, a church member of high standing, 
was shown proofs that his use of chemicals had caused the death 
of twenty-eight children in one season; he said that the law could 
not hold him responsible, for there was no law that reached such 
cases. When asked if he proposed to kill as many children next 
year and every year until he was stopped by law, he replied that 
it was not his business, as he did all he could to protect the milk 
from souring; and if it killed anyone he could not help that. 

This is the pith and essence of most of the food poisoning that 
is going on in this country; and as long as there is nothing to 
show that the adulterators do not intend to kill any particular 
person, they consider themselves free from the moral taint of 
murder. But they are not free. God holds them subject to the 
same justice that was meted out to the murderers of olden times. 

The fault is largely with the indifferent public. Until you 
yourself are afflicted with disease from this cause, you will not care 
how many helpless innocents are slain by the greed of man. 


44 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Most of the cows whose milk is in use in the homes of the land 
are not in good health; many are afflicted with tuberculosis. It 
is said that the percentage of good health among cattle is less than 
ten in a hundred. Farmers do not care. Most of the milk is 
dirty when taken from the cow. The farmers do not care. The 
public could regulate the whole question very speedily by or¬ 
ganization in every locality and a thorough inspection of the 
dairies about them. But the public are willing to use diseased 
milk, for they do not care. 

By laying aside the trait of your indifference, and organiz¬ 
ing a committee in every locality, there would be no question as to 
the ability of every community to secure absolutely pure, 
sweet, clean and wholesome milk. The same is true of eggs and 
fowls. Most hens are fed on filth. Most eggs are unfit for the 
human stomach. We have seen hens that had received no other 
food but the purest and cleanest, and their eggs have been well 
worth the little trouble it costs to get them. The albumen from 
such eggs has an enormous value as a means of health. Hens that 
have died from sickness often are sent to market as meat. Eggs 
that have been under the hen or in the incubator and that have 
not been fertile have found their way to the market. All these 
dangers keep the health of the people at low ebb. Deceit and 
fraud are everywhere rampant, and no one cares. So calloused is 
the human heart that the farmer and the produce dealer will find 
no compunctions of conscience in their business, even if they see 
their victims carried by in hearses on the way to untimely graves. 
It is easy to murder when no one pursues. 

This is an age of food adulteration and drink adulteration of 
the most stupendous proportions. The greed of men is over¬ 
shadowing all honesty. If you will take one thousand different 
kinds of goods that are on sale to-day designed for the stomach, you 
will find purity only by accident. The desire for gain has tempted 
all makers to deal in fraud. If one-tenth of one per cent, of profit 
can he made by adulteration, human ingenuity has found the way 
to ruin its value and make the extra mite of profit. This trickery is 
everywhere apparent, and new surprises are constantly being 
sprung upon the mind. The indifference of the people has made 
such business possible. 

The increase of food-adulterations, drug-adulterations, drink- 
adulterations, and all kinds of fraud that weakens the health 


INDIFFERENCE. 


45 


of the people, leads to the greater use of patent medicines; 
for the people, finding that they are not being cured by the 
doctors, fly from a lesser evil to a greater, and soon are in the toils 
of patent medicines. The latter are poisoned with morphine, 
opium, cocaine, and other ingredients that enslave the taste, and 
make the victims helpless. The result is the increase in the use 
of patent medicines among certain classes; this adds to the income 
of the manufacturers of them; they spend more money in adver¬ 
tising; and the newspapers and many of the unprincipled maga¬ 
zines reap enormous annual incomes from this one source. Now 
if the press were to make an effectual war on the dangers of 
adulterations of food, there would be less sickness and less need 
of the medicines, and less buying of the advertised drugs, and 
less income; the result being that nine out of every ten of the 
papers of America would be compelled to go into bankruptcy. So 
the sentiment that the press is the defender of the rights of the 
people is sentiment only; the press is exceedingly active where its 
income is not affected; it makes many a bluff and show of de¬ 
fending the rights of the people, hut its chief appeal is in fabri¬ 
cating false political dangers, fomenting party and class strife, and 
doing injury to the genuine business of the country under the pre¬ 
tence of having discovered some threatening calamity; but there is 
not an instance on record where the press has fought for the 
people in that most vital department of the battle of life, the main¬ 
tenance of pure food, pure drinks and pure medicines. All these 
are adulterated, and the press profits by the fraud to the extent 
of billions of dollars’ income every year. To believe what is 
printed in the press to-day is a sign of mental weakness that unfits 
men and women for the duties of life. The willingness to be¬ 
lieve what is read when there is no reason for so believing except 
the trumped-up proof that the papers themselves create, is more 
than indifference; it is ignorance and deficiency of mind. 

The ease with which great issues are ignored was illustrated last 
year in one of the great States where the people had complained 
of the injustice of the law’s delay. So inadequate were the courts 
that cases of all kinds were decided by the rust and mold of 
delay aided by the constant use of technicalities by the lawyers 
and judges. At last a remedy was in sight. A constitutional 
amendment was submitted to the people to be voted on, and the 
people did not move from their tracks to go to the polls. The 


46 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


amendment and the remedy were lost, and for the next hundred 
years this exhibition of indifference will be pointed out as an 
example of the uselessness of attempting to right one of the 
grossest wrongs of civilization—the law’s delay whereby honest 
clients are often robbed of home, liberty and property. 

The same trait of indifference was seen in the years 1811, 1812 
and 1813. The statesmen of the land knew well enough that the 
British intended to make war against the United States, and these 
men, having only the most honest and patriotic of motives, ad¬ 
vised the American people to be prepared to meet the enemy; but 
the people said there was no war coming. The British reached 
our coast, sailed up the whole length of the navigable Potomac to 
the capital of our nation and laid it in ruins, committing van¬ 
dalism that centuries will not efface. Then it was that the people 
got an idea that there was to be a war. 

In just the same way have the plagues and epidemics of the 
world come upon the people; and not until thousands have per¬ 
ished have the public awakened to a realization of the danger. It 
took a father three years and required the loss of two sons by 
diphtheria before he thought it necessary to prevent his children 
from going into the district that had been infected for a long 
time. Many a family has fought the idea of vaccination until its 
efficacy has been hammered into their heads by deaths among those 
who were dear to them, but who would not allow the harmless 
operation. The cities that have suffered from the scourge of the 
yellow fever have been those where filth was universal; and they 
were told that the fever would some day smite them; no attention 
was paid to the warning; the fever came and the cemeteries soon 
outnumbered the living, and then the people were willing to give 
heed to the law that cleanliness is next to godliness, and filth is 
but one step from the graveyard. 

There are hundreds of little things that every man and woman 
ought to know concerning the health, but they remain indifferent 
to them and then plead ignorance, and the parent is excused from 
responsibility when the babe dies. Of the last fifty millions of 
deaths among the children of this country, more than forty-five 
millions were due to the ignorance of those who had the care of the 
infants, and they are excused from the charge of having per¬ 
mitted them to die. But what will they say at the Bar of Judg¬ 
ment when the question is put, COULD YOU NOT HAVE 


INDIFFERENCE. 


47 


LEARNED? How will you now answer the question? And 
what do you say now of men and women who, by a little effort, 
could easily ascertain the laws of health and safety, but will not 
put themselves to the trouble of learning them, although it will 
take less time than it does to read a novel? 

It is the little matter that does the great injury. A train 
wreck will lead to an investigation; the burning of a boat, with the 
loss of more than a thousand lives, will start a prosecution; for 
great calamities arrest the attention. But the little things that 
are not worthy of heed, each in itself, are the real dangers. A 
drop of water, striking the head, and repeated many times, will de¬ 
stroy the reason; yet a single drop is nothing in itself. One in¬ 
fraction of the law of health is approximately harmless; it is the 
repetition without limit that brings the disaster. 

It is a trifling thing to stand a minute on a cold sidewalk to 
talk to a friend, and the chances are ten to one that you will not 
know how you caught that cold or attack of la grippe. It is a 
matter hardly worth attention to stand in the open doorway bid¬ 
ding good-bye to some visitor who is clad for outdoor weather while 
you are dressed for indoors; and the slight exposure, even if only 
twenty seconds, may bring on a chill that will have no ending in 
this world; but what does one care at the time of the exposure? 
What could the woman do last winter when a lady caller persisted 
in talking five minutes on the top step, while the front door was 
left open ? What could the woman do when she heard her chidren, 
one after another, begin to sneeze? The visitor insisted on stand¬ 
ing there and talking. It would be rude to tell her to go. The 
woman is dying now of consumption, and two of her children died 
in less than ten days after that exposure. But what was the 
woman to do? 

Exposures to cold temperatures when the body is overheated, 
sitting in open places or by windows that are thrown up to let in 
the fresh air, going out into the rain or snow insufficiently clad, 
and many bits of trifling indiscretion that are slight in themselves, 
lead to much sickness and many fatal maladies; but people will 
not take heed in time to avert the disaster. 

You like new bread. One slice does no harm. It will do no 
good. There is not enough value in a hot roll, or a piece of new 
bread, or a muffin, or a pancake, or any other barbarity in food, 
to counteract the injury which it will do to the system; but you 


48 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


eat it and you say it is all right. Not the least harm is felt. It 
is good to the taste, and you relish it much better than you do the 
plain and wholesome foods; so you take on one grain of sand that 
is never to be unloaded as long as you live. You are getting 
ballast for the grave. All through the meals of the day and year, 
and of life, there are these little dangers, each nothing in itself, 
for nature offsets them in tiny form, but she never releases them 
when they have once got into the ballast that weights us down 
for the grave. 

But when once the health has begun to fail, the old relish for 
the tempting dangers sways the will power, and the indiscretions 
are continued, though in fewer repetitions per day. 

It is not confined to the classes that are called ignorant be¬ 
cause they cannot read books; it is a trait with the rich and poor, 
the high and low, the educated and illiterate, the mental giant and 
the pigmy in sense. One of the wealthiest men that the State 
of New York ever honored with its chief office died from indis¬ 
cretion in eating, in which radishes took a prominent part. He 
knew that they would not do him good, and he had previously had 
trouble from indulging in them, but he liked them. His relish 
caused him to be wholly indifferent to the result. He did not 
know whether he would die or not from the indulgence, and so he 
took his chances. If you could take a glance at the breakfast of 
ninety-nine per cent, of the brainy people of the civilized world 
you would see why so many medicines are sold. But the evening 
meals are worse. It seems that the more sedentary a man or woman 
is and the less need there is for heavy food, the more disposed the 
eater is to clog the system with accumulations that cannot possibly 
be digested. 

All such people are on the down grade of ill health. They may 
make the common trite remark that they never saw a sick day in 
their lives; but they have paid out hundreds of dollars for medi¬ 
cines just the same, and they are walking between two phalanxes 
of the enemy, the drugs they use and the foods they eat, the 
ghosts of which will not down at their behest. 

When a man or woman has the mental keenness to recognize 
what is meant by indifference, to know it when it is met with, and 
to resist its insidious influence, it may be said of such person that 
inspiration has come as far as the threshold of the mind and is 
gently knocking for admission. 


CHAPTER NINE 

_ 


Tl}e Tfyree Regimes 


HIGH REGIME. MIDDLE REGIME. LOW REGIME 


f ALSTONTSM presents an exact plan of living to meet 
the needs not only of one class of individuals, but of 
three distinct grades of humanity; and the Regimes are 
so adjustable as to be suited to many sub-divisions of 
people. It is an old saying that what is good for one 
person is not good for another, or may not be the best for another. 
It is also true that the presence of one kind of disease may demand 
a treatment that is directly opposite to that which a different malady 
may require. While this book does not persent special treatments, 
the conditions of the health are reflected as much before actual 
sickness is developed as afterward. 

This plan of dividing the methods of the book into Regimes is 
of the highest importance and should be studied until thoroughly 
understood. The lowest form of Regime is closely allied to the 
present abuses of the health, except that the most serious of those 
abuses are omitted. A person who will not give up the little that 
is demanded will not escape the consequences of the defience of 
the laws of nature and nature’s God. There can be no doubt that 
the Creator punishes all those who challenge the laws He has 
made. Proof of this is everywhere seen. On what principle is 
an animal permitted to go free from promiscuous association, 
while a man or woman is made to suffer the tortures of the two 
filthiest of diseases, if there is not a penalty for human defiance of 
the laws of life? Disease is not natural. Yet it is universal and 
is on the increase. Its only master is Regime. Hence the first 
study of humanity is in this direction. 


49 










50 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


RALSTON REGIME 

is intended to meet the varying conditions of people, and therefore 
is divided into three great systems, as follows: 

Ralston HIGH Regime. 

Ralston MIDDLE Regime. 

Ralston LOW Regime. 


A few descriptive remarks will enable the reader to understand 
the difference between the three Regimes. 

High Regime is curative. 

Middle Regime leads to improvement in health. 

Low Regime keeps the health stationary. 


High Regime is for persons who are in weak health. 
Middle Regime is for persons in fair health. 

Low Regime is for persons in robust health. 


High Regime is a plan of living that aims at high ideals or the 
best laws of health. 

Middle Regime is a plan of living that is suited to people who 
are unwilling to obey the strict demands of nature, but who will 
comply with many of the easier rules of conduct. 

Low Regime is a plan of living that is suited to people who 
prefer to let the health take care of itself, but who are willing to 
apply a few of the doctrines of common sense to their habits of 
daily life. 


High Regime is curative; that is, it will set in motion the 
curative processes for persons who are in weak health, and they will 
gradually come into fair health. This is due to the principle 
that nature, under favorable conditions, tends to heal the weakened 









THE THREE REGIMES. 


51 


body and to cure the sick. In fact, all doctors know that their 
skill is most effective when it puts their patients in harmony with 
nature. 

Middle Regime would not suffice to help persons who are in 
weak health; its effect would be to keep their condition about the 
same. Thus a person who is in weak health would get better under 
High Regime, would stay the same under Middle Regime, and 
would get worse under Low Regime. Persons who are in fair 
health would get better slowly under Middle Regime; but would 
improve very rapidly under High Regime, and would gradually 
lose ground under Low Regime. 

Persons in robust health would remain about the same under 
Low Regime; would add to their vital powers under Middle Re¬ 
gime; but would subject themselves to unnecessary self-denial 
under High Regime. 

High Regime is curative, but is not a treatment. It is designed 
for persons in weak health. Persons in w r eak health may not be 
afflicted with any specific disease or malady. If they are so 
afflicted they require special treatment. High Regime, therefore, 
is not for them, unless the special treatment includes that as a 
part of its course. 

Low Regime is not by any means a low method of health, but is 
merely founded on the lowest of the standards of personal care. 
It is an affirmative and aggressive plan of living, but is in the 
lowest part of the scale of self-denial. It accomplishes much when 
it is able to keep a person of robust body in this era of wanton 
neglect and food poisoning in a stationary condition of health. 

Anything lower than Low Regime is to be classed under the 
Four Cardinal Enemies of Health; which brings us to the pre¬ 
vailing conditions of the times, and will gradually undermine the 
most robust of all bodies. There is no man or woman so consti¬ 
tuted as to vitality or health who is able to live by a plan lower than 
that of Low Regime and escape the inroads of disease; it is merely 
a question of time. 

An absolute and total disregard of some plan of living is sure 
to bring the best health into the conditions that the best garden will 
attain when left wholly to itself. There is no exception to this 
law and no human being can safely defy it. 

A person in weak health is one who finds the system out of 
order, the nerves weary, the mind easily fagged, the organs sluggish 


5i 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


in their work, the blood poor, the liver inactive, the stomach lacking 
in tone, the lungs debilitated, the head dull, or some general condi¬ 
tion that is abnormal. 

A person who is actually afflicted with disease has the malady 
either in an acute or a chronic form; and such person is not classi¬ 
fied as one who is in weak health, for the condition is worse. Such 
a person needs a special treatment. This distinction should be 
borne in mind at all times. The present book has been set forth 
only as adapted to persons in weak health, in fair health and in 
robust health. 

A person in fair health is one who is not actually well, but 
who possesses a fair or average condition of body. There are 
millions of them everywhere, and they succumb easily to colds, 
catarrhs, stomach disorders, la grippe, or any of the scores of ills 
that come around in due season each year. It is at such times 
that they are most in danger, and out of their ranks death takes 
its readiest victims. They represent the great masses of popula¬ 
tion among the rich and the poor. Yet Ralston Middle Regime 
will save them, and keep off the attacks of disease of every kind. 
They need attention more than any other class; for, being neither 
sick or well, they are at sea in matters of health. 

A person is in robust health when there is no disease present, 
no weakness, no proneness to catch cold, catarrh, la grippe, or 
stomach disorder, and the organs are all working perfectly. There 
is never a headache, never a dulness about the eyes, the temples, 
the back of the head, or the heart; never a lagging of the liver; 
never a sluggish appetite, and never an irregularity in the in¬ 
testinal or lower functions. Such a person is safe only by the 
use of the Low Regime; but if any of the Four Cardinal Enemies 
of Health are allowed to have sway, disease will slowly undermine 
the robust health, and the lungs, the heart, the stomach or the 
kidneys will give way. Remember this fact. 

TREATMENTS FOR SPECIAL DISEASES. 

When a person is suffering from a specific malady, there is need 
of special treatment that relates to that disease. This book has 
been assigned to the task of dealing with only the three conditions 
already referred to; and it is not possible to include in its space the 
many special treatments that are required to properly deal with 
specific diseases. They are fully described in the last pages of this 
work. 


CHAPTER TEN 

_ 


Cooking 


AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE HEALTH of the BODY 


OT all cooking is safe. The modem plan is to 
appeal to the mouth and not to the stomach. Under 
the present methods of carrying on housekeeping, 
the knowledge of the laws of health is in no way con¬ 
nected with the art or science of cookery. On the 
other hand, what are the health dangers in such compounds ? Doc¬ 
tors give satisfactory evidence of preparation, and this is re¬ 
quired by the law as a safeguard against the dangers of igno¬ 
rance. It is said by law-makers that it is not right that injury 
should be done the body by prescribing compounds that are not 
based upon accurate knowledge of their effect upon the human 
system. 

But what protection has the public against the quack cook, and 
how many cooks are there who are not quacks? What is the 
health value of the compounds placed before you at the table of 
any boarding-house, any restaurant or any hotel; and, on the 
other hand, what are the health dangers in such compounds? We 
are sure that it is far more dangerous to eat the products of modern 
cooking than to take the medicine of the charlatan and ignorant 
quack. Yet the public have no protection against the greater of the 
two evils; for it is a more serious offence to cause a malady than to 
aggravate its nature. The quack may miss his guess, but the cook 
rarely does, for more persons are killed by the guns of the present 
day kitchen than by the battles of all the ages. 



53 










54 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


No wonder the cook forbids any member of the family from 
entering the kitchen. An inquisitive woman, who was told by her 
cook that she must keep out of her own kitchen, had the curiosity 
to learn why, and bored a hole in the floor, which enabled her to 
get a full view of what was going on. We will not nauseate our 
readers by repeating what she saw; but the woman does her own 
cooking now. 

We present here the most important of the 

HEALTH PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN COOKING. 

The following rules have been tested by the Ralston Health Club 
for the past twenty-seven years; and the Club can speak with 
certainty and authority in the matters herein presented: 

1. The value of food may consist as much in the manner in 
which it is cooked as in the substance of which it is composed. 
Tables of the percentages of nutrition, etc., are of very little value 
if'the food is to be ruined by the cook. 

2; Most well-to-do Women consider it a social sin to be able to 
cook. On the other hand, it is one of the noblest and most exalted 
of accomplishments. The best men, among those who refuse to 
marry, give it as a reason that they do not wish wives who have no 
knowledge of the art or science of cooking. They claim, and justly 
too, that the model wife is the woman who knows the principles of 
cooking, and who can therefore see to it that the food is properly 
prepared. This knowledge saves many dollars and many ills, even 
if the wife does not do any of the actual work. 

3. The chef system of cooking, whereby fancy male cooks are 
hired at fancy wages, or rather salaries, to do fancy cooking, is 
sending countless thousands of men and women into premature 
graves and is ruining much of the God-given food that earth yields 
for the use of humanity. The chef appeals solely to the relish, 
and this is one of the Four Cardinal Enemies of Health. 

4. Foods consist of animal and vegetable products. All that con¬ 
tains the flesh fiber and protoplasmic contents of flesh-cells is 
known as animal food. It is not true that all that comes from 
the animal kingdom is necessarily animal. For convenience, such 
products as milk, butter, cheese, cream, eggs, honey, fat meat, etc., 
are said to be animal; yet they are in fact but slightly related to the 
animal condition. Nor can they be called vegetable. 

5. The vegetable kingdom furnishes fruits, grains, vegetables 
and grasses for the use of humanity. 


COOKING. 


55 


6. All food contains its substance locked up in cells. The ma¬ 
terial of which the wall of the cell is composed is never digestible, 
and is often very dangerous to the human system. A very strong 
stomach is able to tear some of such material apart and thus release 
the contents. 

7. The apple is a familiar example of the danger of eating un¬ 
opened cells. In the case of all fruits, nature bursts open the 
cells by two processes: one is that of ripening, and the other is 
that of mellowing. When the apple is eaten hard, the fruit juices 
are never set free in the human body, and the result is that dis¬ 
tress and danger may follow. When the apple is mellow, nature 
sets free the contents of the cells, and then the apple is beneficial. 
If the apple ripens on the tree, it is mellow, and the cells have 
burst to let the contents out; hence the skin is needed to protect 
them. The same is true if it softens during the weeks or months 
following picking from the tree. 

8. In the case of fruits the contents of the cells are quite different 
at the time when the fruit cells are ready to burst open than at 
any time previous. Nature ripens her fruit on the tree; but 
when she mellows it afterwards, she ripens it also by that pro¬ 
cess; otherwise she would rot it. The contents of cells that have 
been burst open by rot are active poisons. The contents of fruit 
cells that have been burst open by cooking are also poisons. The 
Teason for the latter rule is in the fact that the contents of the 
unripened or unmellowed cells are not the same in chemistry as 
when nature has burst the cells open and set the juices free. When 
the fruits are made by cooking to give up their juices, even if cook¬ 
ing is able to burst open the cells, they furnish an unripened 
juice, which would have ripened in harmony with the mellowing of 
the fruit by natural processes. Cooking does not take the place 
of nature. 

9. Under the microscope the fruit cells of most fruit that was 
cooked when hard are seen unopened; the cells are torn apart 
and the whole mass seems soft and well-done; but that the con¬ 
tents are not the same can be seen from the fact that green fruit 
will make good jelly after being cooked, but ripe fruit will not. 
We have seen thousands of rheumatic people who eat apple sauce 
made of sour and green apples cooked until they are soft and 
“ done,” and the omission of their sauce has resulted in a lessen¬ 
ing of the pains of their malady. 


56 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


10. Green fruit should not be preserved or jellied except that cer¬ 
tain jellies are helpful for the medicinal acids which they give 
to the system. The rule for putting up fruit is to have the 
frtiit almost but not quite as mellow as it ought to be if eaten 
raw. The slightest difference is overcome by a small tendency to 
mellow and to ripen the fruit while it is in the cans or jars. This 
tendency is very small and should not be magnified. Most peaches 
are preserved too green, and this is true of nearly all the fruits. 

11. No fruit that is unpalatable when raw should be cooked 
into palatability, either for present eating or for putting up for 
future use. Sugar may be used as a preservative, but only in 
combination with fruit that is ready, or about ready, to be eaten 
before the sugar is added. This rule must never be broken. 
People who eat cranberries, gooseberries, plums, sour apples, etc., 
only after the use of sugar has made them sweet enough for the 
taste, will have to pay the penalty in a future uric acid condition 
of the blood that will bring untold misery. 

12. Combinations make a chemical change in the value of foods. 
Thus glucose is made from wholesome corn, but as glucose it attacks 
the liver and the kidneys, little by little, and so quietly that the 
investigator may honestly be of the opinion that it is good food. 

13. Fruits alone, and sugar alone, are beneficial; and sugar 
in combination with some fruits is not very hurtful except to 
persons who are subject to rheumatism; but when the addition of 
sugar increases the relish for the article, then there comes the 
danger. This is seen in the combination of sugar with straw¬ 
berries; the only safe way in which to eat this fruit is by itself,, 
and sugar taken five or ten minutes afterward will not enter into 
combination with the berries in the stomach, as the gastric juices 
interfere. 

14. These principles should enter into the cooking, the prepar¬ 
ing and the preserving of fruits for the purposes of food. 

15. In the cooking of vegetables, of meats and of the starches 
of grains, we have a double-barreled principle which is of the 
most important character. It is this: 

Hie uncooked cell of the thoroughly ripe grain or vegetable may 
be digested in the stomach or other part of the alimentary canal; 
but just as soon as heat affects it its nature is completely changed , 
and it then requires thorough cooking to overcome the condition 
which is produced by the heat. 


COOKING. 


57 


16. This fact may be tested by thousands of experiments, and 
we have had it so tested; and the result is always in support of 
the law, for this seems to be fixed. Let us see the reason for it. 

17. The first effect of heat is to coagulate the food, or to harden 
the cell material, whereby the latter seeks to resist the advance of 
the heat, and to protect the contents of the cell against it. 

18. A wise cook will take advantage of this law. If meat is to 
be baked the oven should be very hot to begin with, so as to coagu¬ 
late the surface of the meat, and thus seal up all the contents. 
This prevents the juices and values from running out and being 
lost. On the other hand, if the roast be placed in the oven when 
the heat is not great enough to affect it, the juices will be set free 
and lost, and the meat that cost twenty cents or more a pound will 
not be worth a cent a pound for food. This is the way that many 
cooks are ruining the flesh-foods that they are given to prepare 
for the table. Meat that has had the value cooked out of it by a 
slow oven in the start will not furnish nutrition for those who 
eat it. 

19. If a soup, stew, or broth is to be made, the water must be 
cool when the meat is put in, and it must be heated gradually, 
while the cut meat is allowed to give forth the contents of the 
cells; for, just the moment the heat is great enough to affect the 
flesh, the latter will coagulate and there will never be another 
drop of nutrition come into the water or fluid part of the food. 
Warm water will draw forth the value of the meat; but hot water 
will seal it up in the interior of the flesh. It makes no difference 
how small the meat may be cut, if the pieces are put in hot water, 
the latter will never get any of the valued juices. 

20. Cooks make the same mistake in cooking meat that they 
make in cooking fruit; they think that because the contents are 
stewed up into a mass that is soft they are necessarily “ cooked.” 
But the microscope will show the stewed meat fibre to be nothing 
but smaller pieces of meat, each sealed up and coagulated. The 
use of hot water in the first steps of making soup or broth or stew 
can never be overcome by long cooking to make the mass “ done” 

21. One thing that is not generally known is that the use of 
salt will draw the valuable juices from meat; and this is seen in 
the practice of pickling beef, tongues, fish, pork etc. The pickle- 
water cannot be used as food, but it contains all the value that 
was in the meat; as may be ascertained by analysis. This shows 


58 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


that such meats are unfit for the human stomach. Salt, however, 
is useful in cooking when it is desirable to get the value from the 
meat into the water for soups, broths, stews, etc., where fresh 
meat is being cooked. 

22. Lean meats that have been pickled in water should never 
be used as food; their tendency is not only to prove valueless, but 
also to deprive the blood of some of its red corpuscles that are so 
much needed in health. 

23. The fat part of meat does not give up its value when 
pickled in salt; and fat corned beef, fat pork, etc., are just as 
good after being pickled as before. Ham is not treated to the 
water process and does not give its value when it is properly 
cured. 

24. Long cooking of meat does not increase its value when the 
heat has the opportunity to coagulate the interior. It is well to 
coagulate the exterior and then give the meat a good cooking, but 
the coagulated part is decidedly dangerous as food, yet most 
palatable because of its greasy flavoring. If the people who like 
it would chew it to their satisfaction and then not swallow it, 
there would be no harm in it, and it would satisfy their relish. 
There is no taste to anything after it passes down the throat, and to 
pass out the mouth would leave the same delightful sensation, and 
at the same time relieve the stomach of the danger. 

25. If people wish their meat cooked through so that there is 
no red flesh showing this can be done by coagulating the surface and 
not coagulating the interior. The loss of the red color does not 
indicate that the juices have been cooked to a dead condition, but 
the surface of the meat should never enter the stomach. 

26. Meat that is warmed over, or subjected to heat a second 
time, after having been once cooked, is a direct poison to the liver 
and the kidneys. Warmed up meat should be avoided with the 
same persistency that warmed up coffee or escaping gas should 
be kept out of the system. This does not mean that meat broth, 
soup, stew, extract, etc., cannot be used warmed over; they do not 
come under the head of meat surfaces that are subjected to heat 
a second time. The danger comes from the use of the meat and 
not the liquid forms made from meat. 

27. The most important facts are those that arise in connection 
with the cooking of the grains. These are wheat, corn, rye, 
buckwheat, rice, peas, beans, and the like ; and the principles that 


COOKING. 


59 


apply to them also relate to potatoes. All are food because they 
contain starch. Starchy foods are the most important. They are 
a necessity. Humanity may live on them alone. This cannot be 
said of any other line of foods regarded from the standpoint of all 
round usefulness. Horses and cattle require them and need hay 
for bulk to distend the stomach. Human beings eat the same 
grains that are required by animals, and may get their bulk from 
potatoes, as the starch is quite limited in them. Thus the starchy 
foods mentioned above may become a complete diet for humanity. 
All persons do better with other kinds of food added, although 
potatoes take the place very nicely of green vegetables when the 
latter are not obtainable. 

28. In the cooking of the starchy foods there are some princi¬ 
ples which are not well understood by cooks and by the public in 
general. Summed up in brief language they are as follows: 

29. Uncooked potatoes contain unopened food cells that re¬ 
quire heat to hurst; therefore it is not possible to thrive on raw 
potatoes. 

30. All the uncooked grains are easily digested by the human 
stomach, as well as by beasts, provided they are thoroughly ground 
by the teeth and mixed with saliva. In fact it is an easily proved 
principle that such food has a strong curative tendency under the 
conditions mentioned. This is not stated because it advances the 
theory of raw food eating; for the practice of eating com meal and 
cracked wheat is many hundred years old. 

31. When the stomach is in a collapsed condition and the body 
has become weakened by lack of nutrition, the habit of eating 
com meal or cracked wheat as a last resort is indulged in to 
great advantage. We have verified reports relating to a score of 
more of men and women who have been doctored almost into the 
grave by medicines and fancy inventions made by science, and who 
have steadily grown worse, until they were willing to take anything 
within reason that was suggested to them, and who have completely 
restored the good condition of the stomach by eating corn meal 
varied with cracked wheat. They have had the persistency to chew 
long and thoroughly, and to take plenty of time to get the saliva 
mixed with the grain. The saliva itself is a digestive agent, and 
the starch is nearly all digested before it reaches the stomach. In 
fact, most of it passes into the circulation through the mouth' 
glands and thus spares the stomach. This diet is useful only as a 


60 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


last resort. It requires time and patience to masticate it. No 
person would be willing to devote the energy and hours to the 
practice, except as a last resort. The habit of dropping the grains 
half-chewed into the stomach, as some advocates of raw-food eating 
do, is very hurtful. 

32. Therefore it will always be the habit of humanity to cook 
its starchy food. Now comes into operation a curious law that 
seems like a contradiction of what we have just stated. It is 
easy to prove that raw grains, starches, etc., are digestible when 
eaten in the manner described. Now if heat enough is applied to 
them to affect their nature, as when they are baked or boiled for a 
minute or more, the starch becomes at once indigestible. A few 
seconds of heat will change the nature of the white of an egg. The 
latter is not so easily digested after that. 

33. The starch in grains is made into a different nature by the 
application of a certain amount of heat. Scalding or a quick 
heating, as of a few seconds, will not effect the whole mass so as 
to change the character of its substance; but a minute or more 
of heat such as is given to food when being boiled or baked will 
effect a change and at once the digestibility is taken away. Some 
stomachs or parts of the alimentary canal will bring about a kind 
of disintegration of the mass and turn it into food in time, but 
the ordinary system of to-day will do nothing of the kind, and all 
quickly baked grains are dangerous to the health. 

34. As proof of this, let any number of men and women of 
good health indulge in hot rolls every morning made from the 
batter of bread that is to go into loaves; and let an equal number of 
men and women avoid the hot rolls and eat bread baked as we re- 
quire it in the Eegimes; and the difference in the health, the com¬ 
plexion and the general vitality at the end of a month will be as 
marked as the difference between the star Arcturus and the star 
Denebola in the June constellations. 

The foregoing principles of cookery are not related to the ends 
now sought in modern methods, for the latter to seek to make food 
rich to the taste and attractive to the eye regardless of its real 
value as nutrition. If you go to a cooking school, you are taught 
the very things that mean doctors’ bill, disease and death. But 
the kind of cookery that makes the best nutritive product of the 
God-given foods of earth, is the kind that is never taught, for it 
is not considered worth the while of the teachers. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 

_ 


Bread 


BREAD . AS • THE * STAPLE . FOOD . OF . LIFE 


MONG ALL the products of earth, bread always has been 
and always will be the noblest food of humanity. 

The first food that was placed on this planet by 
the Creator was wheat. It is shown by the plain 
records of geology to have been here waiting for the 
coming of man. 

It is remarkable in that it contains all the fourteen chemical 
elements needed by the body, and in almost the exact proportion re¬ 
quired. No other article of food is thus endowed. Therefore 
of all the foods that have been placed within reach of man, wheat 
in its wonderful combination exceeds every competitor. 

It seems too bad that the inventive freakishness of man should 
make every possible effort to ruin this staple product. There is 
but one natural use of wheat, and that is in the form of whole¬ 
some bread. But so much poor wheat is raised that will not 
make good bread, that some device is necessary whereby it may be 
utilized, and it is changed into breakfast foods, pancake flour, and 
substitutes for coffee. 

It is a good rule to follow that when wheat is not good enough 
and rich enough in gluten to make first-class bread, it is too poor 
for breakfast food, pancake flour, coffee-pretence, and the similar 
uses to which it is put. No person can better show an appre¬ 
ciation of the special design of the Creator toward the human race 
than by doing homage to wheat producing the best loaf of which 
it is capable. 



61 










62 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


No wife or daughter can better honor her home and her Maker 
than by learning the art of baking wholesome loaf bread. It is 
not a disgrace to work in any honest occupation; and, on the other 
hand, it is the highest of honors to be an expert in bread-making. 

The good bread of the olden day has few imitators at the 
present time. It was then made with yeast, not with alum and 
baking powder, both of which are injurious. It was then baked 
long and thoroughly, and not hastily and in part only. 

Wheat passes through several stages. When it is raw it is 
digestible if masticated and completely dissolved by the powerful 
action of the saliva. When cooked at all, it becomes at once almost 
indigestible unless it is cooked from one to six hours or longer; and 
it seems that the longer it is cooked the more wholesome it be¬ 
comes. This is its third stage, the quick-cooking being the second 
and dangerous step. Then, after it has been made into bread, it 
turns to plasm or direct blood-making food by being kept a few 
days, as the action of the air alters its chemical nature. Finally, 
by toasting it, the chemical nature is again changed. Let us 
sum up these various stages of wheat: 

1. Raw.—Digestible only in the saliva, 

2. Quickly cooked.—Indigestible. 

3. Cooked for two or more hours,—Digestible. 

4. Kept for several days after cooking.—Most wholesome. 

5. Toasted after being kept for days.—Very easily digested. 

Some stomachs are so sensitive that they will rebel against 

almost everything that is easily digested by the average stomach; 
but there are few so dilapidated that they will not digest bread in 
the fifth stage as described above. 

It is the third stage that now commands our attention. 

It is the duty of Ralstonites to do something for their own 
sakes and for the public good. The bread that is made by the 
bakers, by the restaurants, by the hotels, and by nine house¬ 
keepers out of every ten, is not wholesome. It is not good for the 
health. It is so palatable for the most part, and so indigestible at 
the same time, so much relished and so hurtful, that a duty at once 
falls upon every man and woman who pretends to defend the 
Ralston doctrines. 

No Ralstonite will use or have bread made of alum, baking 
powder, ammonia or any other poisonous agent. This rule must be 
insisted upon. If you claim that you have no voice in the matter. 


BREAD. 


63 


the assertion is not well founded. You can hammer away at the 
subject until you conquer. Husbands have done this, sons have 
done it, brothers have done it, and women are in control of the 
matter if they choose to think so. They can make the Ralston 
doctrines known to those who run the houses, and they can 
themselves learn the art of perfect bread-making. Women will 
listen if approached in the proper way. The right kind of 
bread is better for the landlady as well as for the boarder. It 
is all a question of fighting gently but persistently, keeping a 
record of the failures, and then looking upon the final victory 
as all the more glorious in proportion as the failures in the start 
were numerous. 

It is useless for us to give receipts. Bread-making is as much 
a matter of instinctive skill as is any art of home life. There 
are many women in your neighborhood who will gladly tell you all 
about it. Ask them. They are pleased to have you ask them. 
Take your flour over to them and let them watch your efforts, 
if you do not know how to make raised bread. But let every 
woman, every wife, every daughter, every sister learn this, the 
noblest of all the arts. The mother knows, bless her heart! al¬ 
though perhaps time and age have preyed upon her skill and her 
dough is heavy as lead. She once knew. 

Then comes the baking. It is very important. We are not 
talking from theory. We insist upon it in our own home, and 
the family have all grown so much more rugged and healthy since 
its use. We have a cook, but the good wife knows more about 
cooking than the best of them. We had to convert the cook to 
the two-hour theory, but it changed the heavy bread into splendid 
loaves, and all persons were so much benefited that the cook now 
considers it no bother at all. She has come to like it better her¬ 
self, and that case of indigestion that was threatening to send her 
out of service has all gone. 

We have been converting thousands of families into the two- 
hour plan of baking bread. Once in a while we find someone who 
thinks that bread cannot be baked for two hours. A lady called 
on us not long ago and said that she had the reputation of making 
the best bread in town, and she could not bake it two hours. Her 
bread was very palatable, but it made solid lumps of bolus in the 
fihgers, and was found by repeated experiment to be very severe 
on the digestive organs. Her family were all dyspeptics. 


64 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


But our two-hour bread not only pleases the taste, it also helps 
the digestion of all other food that is eaten with it, and is itself the 
most easily digested of any bread we know. The slow process of 
baking can be easily mastered. Once all bread was baked for ten 
to twelve hours. It is only in the last two generations that the bad 
habit of short baking was introduced. 

Self-raising flour, no matter of what kind, or for what purpose, 
must never be used. 

White flour of established reputation is by far the best. 

Nearly all of the whole wheat flour makes a soggy bread, and is 
weak in gluten; the more you eat of it the more depressed the 
stomach becomes. It is the cheapest for the mills, as the grade of 
flour so used is a drug in the market, and is fit only for breakfast 
foods, pancake flour, imitation-coffee, or what is known falsely as 
health products. To be safe it is best to stick to the best makes 
of white flour, milled from hard winter wheat rich in gluten. 

Avoid the positive statements of advertisements, the glaring 
boasts of those who try to convince you that they are interested 
in your health. Their only interest is in their pockets. They will 
fool you into believing that such and such breakfast food will make 
you strong, or such stuff will give you brains, or such an article is 
prepared solely to spread the blessing of good health, when the 
chances are ten hundred in a thousand that the more you take of 
such brain food or such strengthy food, or such hygienic food, the 
less health you will have. Do not believe the statements of dealers 
and advertisers who are interested in making nothing but money 
out of what they are urging you to buy. 

With good white flour, with good yeast, either the compressed, 
the cake or the fluid kind, you are ready to make your bread and to 
see that it is properly baked. 

The two-hour bake is eatable when five to eight hours old, except 
when the stomach is quite weak, in which case it ought to keep till 
twenty-four hours old, and as much longer as you wish to keep it. 
A towel around the bread will keep it soft and new to the taste. 

The use of rye flour in small quantity, say one part of rye flour 
to four of white flour, will give an excellent flavor to the bread. 

The longer it is baked, the more digestible it becomes; and this 
rule applies to a five-hour, or a ten-hour bake, or any length of 
time, provided that the bread is not burned to a brown, as that 
destroys the starch cells. If people would only change their cus- 


65) 


BREADi 

toms in this one particular, anew era of grand health would .dawn 
upon the race. 

Bread that has been baked for two or more hours can be eaten at 
once by any strong stomach, if it is not liable to make a bolus when 
pressed between the fingers. Always test bread by trying to roll 
it into a ball ; if it gums or loses its shape and pores, it is not safe 
to eat. Wait until the condition is right. 

The longer the two-hour baked bread is kept, the more easily it 
will be digested by any stomach, and the more nutrition it contains. 

Bread made by the bakers from alum, ammonia, or baking 
powder, does not get good by keeping; it is not good at any time, 
and does not make good toast, nor will the rule of the bolus apply 
to it, as the drying effects of alum takes all the good out of the 
gluten and renders it valueless, or nearly so. 

The toasting of good bread, which is the home-made bread, 
renders it specially beneficial to a very weak stomach and good 
also for a strong stomach. Toast becomes a tiresome diet if in¬ 
dulged in too much. Nor is dark brown toasting advisable. 

The health of the human body depends largely on the bacteria 
which it can consume. 

Therefore the custom of sterilizing everything by heat is a bad 
one. The process of sterilizing is sure to destroy the good as well 
as the bad bacteria; and bacteria of every kind are nothing but 
vegetable cells; some can kill, as in typhoid, diphtheria, tubercu¬ 
losis, etc., and some can build up rapid strength. When all food 
is artificial, as in the late methods of preparing predigested diet, 
the stomach cannot carry on the process of assimilation, for there 
are no digestive bacteria present. The gastric juice, as well as the- 
saliva, are rivers of bacteria. Let them be sterilized and they will 
cease to be useful. But they must have bacteria supplied to them 
or they become exhausted. Therefore the more of healthful bac¬ 
teria there are in food the more strength will be taken from it 
and passed into the system. 

It is not how much you eat, but what proportion of healthful 
bacteria you take in, that determines your health and vitality. 
This accounts for the fact that one person who is fat will sustain 
his great weight on one-fifth of the food that a lighter person eats; 
if the former contains bacteria that the system needs. 

The wholesomeness of old bread has been praised from sea to 
sea and from age to age. It is due to the hitherto unknown fact 


66 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


that the air, which is full of good bacteria, sets up millions of 
colonies on the bread after it is a day old, and thus makes it a, 
much richer and more nutritious food thereby. To toast this 
until all the bacteria are killed is to ruin the bread. Old bread 
must not be heated too much. The power of such bread to revive 
the collapsed stomach and digestive tract is most amazing. It is 
not at first palatable; but the taste for it soon becomes very great. 

Do not think, because we are stating the facts, that we are ad¬ 
vising you to use the stale bread. If you have certain pets in the 
animal and bird worlds, and give them new bread, you will kill 
them; but if you give them stale bread they will thrive on it and 
show results that ought to impress you. The book that tells yon 
how to care for your pets adds the remark that you will lose them 
if you feed new bread; but why is there no book that tells you that 
the same new bread will also do injury to your nobler pets,, 
the members of your household ? Because the dumb pets are killed 
at once, and the members of your family are slowly poisoned, and 
the doctor, by regulating their diet, brings them back again te 
health. When he is gone and the family are well again, the same 
mistakes are made over and over, and again the doctor is called 
and again he regulates the diet. Is that the sensible way of doing ? 

There is very little decent bread to be had to-day. We know 
that the bolus-bread, or that which makes doughy lumps, is not; 
good, and is steadily undermining the health. 

Crackers, hard-tack, pilot bread, and other form of bread that 
is put up in cans or sealed for long keeping, gets its food value 
from the bacterial life which is created in its pores; but even then 
the health of those who use it is never the best. 

The more bread you eat, and the less other food you eat, the 
better will be your health; but bread alone is not enough in the- 
whole diet, although it will prolong life for years. 

The High Regime meets the needs of the body in a perfect 
manner; but its chief article of food is wholesome bread; and 
this cannot be had without some effort on your part. If you are 
helpless, it is because you choose to be. The boat of life drifts 
down stream whenever left to itself; and if you choose to leave 
the bread question to itself, or to servants, which is the same 
thing, or to bakers, which is the same thing, you will be simply 
sitting in the boat and allowing it to float down stream. Just; 
take the oars and pull a little with your own hands. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 

Tlje Severj Cereals 


THE - SOLID - FOODS - OF LIFE 


f HERE would be some doubt as to the special interest 
of a higher power in the welfare of humanity if 
no provision had been made for the production of 
foods that were capable of being kept a long time 
with little difficulty. Meat spoils very soon, except 
in climates where cold protection is possible. Emits 
are short-lived, unless dried and thus partly deprived of their 
value. Vegetables do not endure long without a degree of care 
that is not permissible in hot climes. 

But there are certain seeds, known as grains, or cereals, that 
may be kept for many years in any part of the globe; and these 
are absolutely necessary for the life of man. These are known as 
the seven cereals, and their names are given in the order of their 
importance and value as food: 

1. Wheat. 

2. Corn. 

3. Rice. 

4. R}^e. 

5. Oats. 

6. Barley. 

7. Buckwheat. 

Wheat, because of its all-round qualities, is worth about fifty 
times all the other cereals together. It is the grain of civilization, 
and is most used where the people are the most advanced in in¬ 
telligence and progress. 


67 










68 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


For the purposes of making bread, it is necessary that the 
cereal should possess a gluey substance that will stretch when acted 
upon by gases, and thus form bubbles or cells like those in a sponge. 
The cereal that possesses the best of such substances of necessity 
makes the lightest bread. 

The rank of each cereal in its quality to make raised bread is 
not the same as its rank in food value. Thus wheat makes the 
best bread and is also of the highest rank as food; but rye, which 
is of the fourth rank in its usefulness as food, is second in its 
power to make raised bread. Rice, which is lacking in this bread¬ 
making power, is far superior in food value to rye and barley, both 
of which make bread, although the hordein in barley is almost too 
tough for the action of raising gases. 

The first four of the cereals are called the NOBLE GRAINS, 
and the last three are called the baser grains. Wheat, corn, rice 
and rye are necessary to the best diet of man, while oats, barley 
and buckwheat are injurious to the stomach and digestive system 
except under very rare combinations which are not generally found 
in a highly civilized country. 

The baser grains will be discussed now and disposed of to make 
Way for the study of the noble grains. 

Barley is wholly out of the question, as it can be digested only 
by giants or athletes of a type that is not met with in any of the 
countries of advanced civilization. Pearl barley is almost nothing 
but the starch removed from the grain, and is of the highest use¬ 
fulness in making soups, and thus giving strength to what may 
not be a very nutritious dish. But whole barley should never be 
touched, and especially in the form of breakfast food, or as meal. 
Do not be deceived by boastful advertisements that praise its quality 
and power, for it admits of enormous profits to unscrupulous makers 
who would have you believe that it makes brain, brawn and a 
hundred other qualities that are purely imaginary. 

All soups should have pearl barley or rice in them; the barley 
should be soaked and made quite soft, and then cooked a long time 
in the broth. The whole barley, even in soups, is indigestible. 
No matter how finely it may be ground, it is an irritant to the 
stomach and intestines. The eating of whole barley will unfit the 
digestive system for its better work in assimilating the nobler foods. 

Buckwheat is an unbalanced grain, having too much of the 
sweet and almost none of the strengthening qualities that are re- 


69 


THE SEVEN CEREALS. 

quired. It can be cooked only when in thin layers, as the outer 
crust of thick cakes becomes over-cooked before the inner parts are 
done. Owing to its irritant nature, especially in the blood, it 
causes many sores and pimples on the face, and may lead to boils, 
carbuncles, ulcers and tumors throughout the body. We have had 
several cases called to our attention where there was an incurable 
tendency toward boils and carbuncles; and no remedy would stop 
them until the use of buckwheat cakes was wholly stopped, and 
then the blood became purer. 

It is often the case, where women are fond of buckwheat cakes, 
or of any fried cakes, that they become victims of tumors; but the 
buckwheat habit is the worse, for uterine ulcers and tumors are 
likely to follow the continued indulgence in them. Tumors, ulcers, 
boils, carbuncles, pimples and eruptions are masses of carbonaceous 
dead-food that have accumulated in the blood and are seeking 
escape, and they furnish toxins for many of the bacteria that cause 
the disorders referred to. 

Now it is well known that buckwheat is the most carbonaceous 
of the grains. But it is almost equally true that any other cereal, 
if eaten with too much fat, or syrups, or sugar, will pile up the 
same accumulation in the system. Many women who doctor to 
get rid of the pimples on the face, and who do not cease the eating 
of such excess of foods, will only ruin the skin and do greater 
injury. Remove the cause, which is to lessen the eating of a one¬ 
sided diet, and nature will cleanse the blood. Medicines will never 
do it. 

Oats are not the food of civilization in its highest form, and 
are a poison to the liver and the heart. They can be digested by 
people who live in mountains and who make themselves very hardy 
by outdoor life and hard toil; and even then they are cooked for 
hours and mingled with milk, which adds to their digestion. 

The use of oatmeal in this country as a breakfast food is one of 
the most absurd of all customs; for there is but little in the meal 
that can be digested, and the rest is left to tax the membrane of 
the stomach, give a rank poison to the liver, and set the heart out 
of its normal condition. The test of the real value of any article 
of food is to eat it alone, not once, but for a whole month, three 
times a day. It is true that variety is relished, and that is right; 
but it is not difficult to live for a month on certain foods, such as 
wheat bread, milk, meat, potatoes and apples. Here is a diet that 


70 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


will tire but little. Let the bread be well buttered, the meat well 
seasoned, and the apples mellow and agreeable to the taste. The 
test comes when you substitute oatmeal in place of the bread. 
Before the month is up, the digestive system will be ruined and 
the liver will have sent its yellow poisons to the face, while the 
heart will be on the verge of collapse. In fact, there are not many 
persons who could survive a month of oatmeal, while all would 
thrive on the wheat bread. 

Groats, which are the better parts of the oats, are excellent as 
food, when they are cooked for not less than eight hours, and 
eaten by persons not of sedentary habits. But oatmeal is to be 
entirely removed from the diet of all persons, well or sick. The 
gruel or broth of oatmeal is good, when it has been cooked for eight 
hours, and all the solid parts strained off. 

We come now to the noble grains. 

Wheat has already been discussed in another chapter, and very 
little remains to be said except that when it is cooked at all it must 
be cooked not less than two hours, even if it seems done long before 
that time. This would make the use of breakfast foods impossible 
unless they are cooked as stated for two hours, then toasted to a 
dry condition. The best form of wheat breakfast food is the whole¬ 
wheat that can be purchased in bulk, not in packages, as it is 
much cheaper and much fresher; and if it contains any worms they 
can be seen before the food is purchased. Cook by slowly boiling 
in a double-boiler for two hours, then brown in an oven, and eat 
with cream or milk, but without sugar. That is a delicious article 
of food that will please the most fastidious taste. 

Groats, but not oatmeal, can be treated in the same way, except 
that the groats should be cooked for eight hours, and then browned 
in a hot oven until dry, and eaten with cream or milk, but not sugar. 

Many persons have been misled by the advertisements and di¬ 
rections given for cooking foods; each concern wishing to secure 
public favor by claiming that its goods require less time in cooking 
than others. 

It is evidence of a high degree of intelligence when men and 
women will go exactly opposite the claims made by advertisers. If 
a breakfast food is said to make brains, take it for granted that it 
will destroy common sense; if it is advertised as good for the 
health, believe that it will be good for the health if not used; and 
by this method you will get down to the basis; of good judgment. 


THE SEVEN CEREALS. 


71 


The quick cooking of any grain or cereal does not make it di¬ 
gestible, no matter how soft it is. The cells are often released from 
their adhesion to each other, which makes the mass soft, while the 
cells are still unopened. Softness is not the guide to thorough 
cooking. 

Cake, piecrust, dumplings, doughnuts, cookies, snaps, crackers 
that are crisp, pancakes, biscuit, waffles, and all sorts of barbarous 
compounds that are the product of modern cooking, are incapable 
of being cooked long enough to be digestible. We know that we 
are challenged by the cooking schools and chefs of the advanced 
ideas in preparing foods; but we have the following proofs on our 
side of the question, to offset the cooking school and the chef: 

1. We have the chemical analysis. 

2. We have the tests made by thousands of people who are in bad 
health and who have been made worse, even brought to the verge 
of the grave by eating the briefly-cooked articles which we have 
named. 

3. We have the tests made by thousands of people who are in 
fair health, and who have never failed to be dragged down by the 
use of the foods which we have mentioned. 

4. We have the tests made by hundreds of people who claim that 
they can eat anything without being hurt by it, but who were not 
able to endure a diet, no matter how varied, when composed of the 
foods we have mentioned. And we have offered fifty thousand 
dollars for proof that even the most healthy of men and women 
can survive a year on a diet of the things we have mentioned; while 
we know that the same ingredients, differently compounded, and 
longer cooked, will maintain life and improve the health, no mat¬ 
ter how many years they are eaten. 

We advocate the long cooking of all starchy foods, not because 
it is a theory with us, but because it is a fact that the human 
stomach demands such cooking. Those who take the position that 
a little of the objectionable food will not do much harm, and who 
defend their claim on the theory that variety is necessary, will go 
so far as to say that any wholesome food that is one-sided is also 
deficient and therefore injurious. This will not be an honest argu¬ 
ment, for a combination of wholesome foods, each deficient in itself, 
but made a part of a complete diet in conjunction with other de¬ 
ficient foods, will make good health, and never do harm; while a 
combination of the hurtful foods, such as cake, piecrust, dumplings, 


72 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


cookies, snaps, crackers (except when old and germy), pancakes, 
biscuit, waffles, etc., will kill. Is it good sense to eat anything that 
will destroy life if taken as a regular food and constantly, under 
the plea that a little of it does not do much harm? The sensible 
person will seek the food that does a little good when taken in small 
quantities, and a sufficient amount of good when taken in sufficient 
quantities; and will discard the food that does a little harm in 
small lots and a great harm in large lots. 

The bran of wheat is wholly indigestible. Graham flour is made 
with the bran in it, and the constant use of it caused the death of 
its inventor, Sylvestor Graham. It is a dangerous kind of bread 
and is very unpalatable when not perfectly fresh. It should be 
avoided. Whole wheat bread is not good when the bran is ground 
in, or when it has a dark look, or when made from soft wheat; 
and it is risky to attempt to buy whole wheat flour unless the maker 
is well known as honest and honorable. We have no knowledge of 
any good whole wheat flour being made to-day south of the latitude 
of New York City. 

Bran water is wholesome as a drink in connection with lemon 
juice from a fresh lemon, and unsweetened; but the bran itself 
must be strained off, after it has colored the water a milky white. 
This drink is very refreshing, and saves the danger from drinking 
clear ice-water in the summer time. 

Many makers of flour, not only the whole wheat, but the white 
flour, buckwheat, etc., add the inexpensive alum in the grinding of 
it to make it lighter and more easily raised. Your local committee 
could send any suspected flour to a chemist, or to any University 
that teaches chemistry, or to the U. S. Chief Chemist at Washing¬ 
ton, for analysis, and thus ascertain its quality. The maker of 
such flour should be sent to the penitentiary, and so should any 
baker who uses alum in his bread, and any seller of baking-powder 
that contains alum, as there is no greater danger to the health of 
the people than that which attends the slow process of poisoning 
life by the use of alum. 

Corn is useful in many ways, but chiefly in the form of a mush 
long boiled, and then eaten with milk without sugar or sweetening. 
It may be warmed over the next morning, by frying, if the crisp 
parts of the surface are not eaten. When chewed raw and kept in 
the mouth until the saliva passes it through the glands to the 
blood, it is one of the most wholesome of foods for a very weak 


THE SEVEN CEREALS. 75 

and sickly stomach. The same may be said of cracked wheat. We 
know of a large number of cases of severe gastritis that would not 
yield to the skill of the ablest doctors living, where the patients 
cured themselves by this method, and six of them were millionaires. 

While corn is a heating food, and will also furnish strength of 
muscle, it has parts that are suited to other seasons. Hominy is 
a good summer form of corn, as it is not so heating. Hulled corn 
is very valuable. Corn starch is easily digested and is much used 
in the diet of invalids and those who have weak stomachs. Many 
excellent dishes are made from it. 

Rye contains gliaden and no gluten, while wheat contains both 
gliaden and gluten, which accounts for the fact that the two flours, 
rye and wheat, in almost any proportion, will mix well together and 
give a very palatable bread. 

Rice flour is often added by bakers to their bread to give it 
weight when they have made it too light by the use of alum, hut 
the rice part of it, by holding water, is apt to make it soggy unless 
the loaf is turned while baking. It is not a good combination. 

Rice by itself, cooked so as not to be soggy, is one of the most 
valuable of the “ quieting” cereals, for it soothes the system and 
produces sleep. A constant use of nothing but rice and butter, or rice 
and milk, will make the user so sleepy that he cannot keep awake 
more than twelve hours a day. In one hundred and seventy-six recent 
experiments with persons who are diseased from insomnia, not one 
failed to get the sleep habit in a week by the rice diet alone; and 
not the slightest ill effects were produced. The whole system 
underwent a complete change, and repairs of the most urgent 
character were carried on by nature. It sometimes happens that 
a single idea, if weighty enough, will he worth thousands of dollars; 
for a millionaire offered a fortune to anyone who could produce 
natural sleep without any injurious consequences; and, after the 
doctors, with all their skill, had got through giving him their 
drugs and anaesthetics, the simple Ralston idea was taken up and 
triumphed. 

There are many forms in which rice may be made most palatable. 

Rice and fish have great value as a summer food; of course in 
connection with such a variety as the taste may call for from the 
other articles of food. 

Rice should never be used with sugar if the combination can be 
avoided, although candy can be eaten soon afterward without pro- 


T4 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


ducing the sugar ferment that is so hurtful. The gastric juice 
prevents them from combining. 

Rice naturally mingles with meat broth, soups, stews, etc., and is 
most wholesome when so cooked. 

Generally speaking, rice requires less time in cooking than other 
cereals. 

The whole tapioca, which is a purified form of cassava, is 
made from the manioc plant, and is wholesome and easily digested 
but pearl tapioca is totally indigestible and very distressing. Our 
statement of this fact corrected an error which had been running 
in a family of Ralstonites, who could not get in good health despite 
a careful following of our doctrines. We found that they were all 
fond of tapioca, and ate it almost daily; but, having moved into a 
new locality where the store did not sell the whole tapioca, they 
began to use the pearl kind, and then their misery began. 

Sago is good as food, and is easily digested. 

Mosses are also excellent for the system, but are a summer dish, 
owing to the cooling effect on the blood. Iceland moss is the best. 
Irish moss is good when thoroughly purified and refined, as it has 
a rank sea odor and coarseness of flavor. 

We have now discussed the whole list of cereals, which furnish 
the solid foods of humanity. What we have said is founded not on 
theory or guess-work, but on established facts. The public may 
be slow to admit them as truths, owing to the many interests that 
are disposed to challenge the statements; nevertheless they are 
absolute truths. Who will dispute them? Let us see. 

Doctors who are honest will accept these truths, for the mere 
reason that they are true. Is any greater reason needed? 

There are many other interests that are naturally opposed to the 
restoration of public health; but we will not enumerate them. We 
will take the position that was taken by the lawyer who had an 
almost hopeless case. With no prospect of winning it he spoke only 
these few lines to the jury: “ Gentlemen of the jury, I am opposed 
too heavily in this trial to hope to win. Against us is the powerful 
and all-influential defendant; against us are lawyers of command¬ 
ing skill and shrewdness; against us are many witnesses of high 
standing; against us is the judge, whose opinions carry great 
weight; but, gentlemen of the jury, if you and I stick together, we 
will come out all right.” And they did. 

You, who own this book, are one of the jury. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


Aijinjal Foods 


MEAT . FISH . FOWL . GAME . SPECIALS 


HE MOST important principle in the support of 
human life has never been told by the books of 
science until quite recently. But at the present day, 
since Ralstonism made the matter clear to the world 
in this book of Inside Membership, it is now every¬ 
where agreed that there is no food that will support the human 
body except the basis of animal life. There is no such thing as 
animal life in any other form than this basis. 

If you take a piece of meat and look closely into it by the aid 
of a microscope, you will find nothing but little cells of protoplasm, 
or plasm, as we will call it. Even the bones of the body are com¬ 
posed of such cells as make meat and flesh, except that minerals 
have been flowing in them and have been left to harden. All 
hones are full of food, for they contain the plasm cells and the 
value known as marrow, as well as blood and other forms of food. 
But they are all in the shape and condition of cells. 

The whole body is so made. 

It is the cell of plasm that makes food, and if you cannot give 
this to your own body you will not be able to supply it with what 
it must have, a vital form of life. 

An animal that is savage by nature must develop in his body 
each day fully ten times the amount of vitality that is used by the 
tame beast; and this accounts for the fact that all savage beasts 
are meat-eaters. The eating of meat is simply the transferring 

. 75 - • 









76 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


of ready-made life cells from one flesh to another. It has a great 
advantage, and a great disadvantage. 

The advantage is in the fact that meat is cell-life such as the 
human body makes out of its own food, the grains and fruits and 
vegetables; and the eating of flesh saves, the tax of making one’s 
own life-cells. This is such an advantage that, when a person is 
very weak and the stomach is too depressed to carry on the process 
of digestion, doctors give extracts of raw meat, or the juice and 
cell-life scraped from raw beef. 

The disadvantage is in the fact that the meat of animals is 
formed-life, and there is no state of formed-life so new that it is 
not already on the road to decay. It is true of the cell of plasm 
as of the whole body, the moment we begin to live we begin to die. 
The purest of flesh, therefore, is the beginning of cell-death. 
This is the disadvantage, and excess of meat-eating will, at all 
times, and under the most wholesome conditions, store in the body 
much that is of the nature of death itself. Owing to the weakened 
condition of the digestive system during the summer, the less meat 
we eat the healthier will we be. 

This same disadvantage is known the world over and through 
all the ages. The Bible has much to say against it, and expressly 
forbids the eating of flesh that has fed on flesh. If you eat the 
meat of any animal that has been fed on meat you get a direct 
poison, and one that is not always slow, for hogs that have been 
fed on meat are totally unfit as food. Many experiments have 
been made on dog meat and on pork. Dogs have been given meat 
from hogs that were kept clean and that always were fed on the 
best of grains, and never allowed to root in manure; and the dogs 
were not in any way harmed. The same dogs, after a wait of two 
months, were fed on the flesh of other hogs, who were allowed to 
root in filth and to have meat, as is the custom in feeding many 
hogs to-day, and the dogs all died of rotten sores. It is well proved 
that human beings who are fed on the lean meat of hogs that have 
been given full freedom to root in filth, as is the universal custom 
to-day, are apt to become afflicted with sores, and cancers have 
been traced to the use of lean pork. 

Other tests have been made by feeding human beings on meat 
of dogs that had been fed on grains exclusively, and the results 
have not been bad, while the same persons, on being fed with the 
meat of dogs that have had meat, were afflicted with sores. These 


77 


ANIMAL FOODS, 

conditions have also been found in the cases of cities that were cut 
off from the outside markets during war, as in the history of Paris. 
Meat-fed dogs could not be eaten at all because of the effect on the 
blood, which was like sowing rot. Dogs and cats, although dis¬ 
posed to eat only flesh, may be induced to live on well cooked 
porridges of grains. 

Fat is a distilled form of meat, and holds the same relation to 
flesh that condensed steam holds to water. No matter how impure 
the water may be, if you boil it and condense the steam, and repeat 
this two or more times, the result will be absolutely pure water. 
The navies of the world get their drinking water at sea by distilling 
the salt water of the ocean. Fat meat is generally pure, even of 
meat-fed animals. The fat of pork is not in any way related to 
the lean part of pork; the latter may be dangerous while the fat 
may be very wholesome. 

It is our opinion that nature never intended meat to be eaten, 
except for its fat and its juices. The fiber of lean meat is danger¬ 
ous to the weak stomach of the convalescent, while the fat and the 
juices of the meat are wholesome. Let any person who is recover¬ 
ing from fever take a piece of steak, or any meat, no matter how 
well it may be cooked, and the chances are even that death will 
ensue; yet let the same person take the fat, or the juices, free 
from the fiber, and a decided benefit will result. This principle 
is summed up in the facts stated below: 

1. The human body requires fat meats, or a sufficient substitute; 
and, without them, there can be no conditions of first-class health. 
There is nothing in the fruits or in the cereals or in the vegetables 
of the world at the present day that can furnish a sufficient substi¬ 
tute for fats. All the arguments and all the theories of food- 
teachers, piled mountain high, cannot combat the results of over 
six thousand experiments made by us with all classes of people in 
this one line alone. 

2 . The human body does not need the juices of meat, except 
when the health is at low ebb; but such juices are of decided benefit 
even to persons who are well. 

3. Lean meat has no nutritive value whatever as food for hu¬ 
manity except in its juices. 

4. These juices are contained in tissue cells, which are held 
together by tough muscles; and these muscles are wholly indigesti¬ 
ble. Their only value is to hold the meat together longer in the 


78 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


main or first stomach, which alone is capable of extracting the 
juices from the cells. Only a very strong and normal stomach 
can dissolve the meat and get the juices out. When the latter are 
released, the meat tissue passes on and is an irritant to the liver, 
which repudiates it, and to the kidneys, which will have no part 
in disposing of it. The fact is well known that a diet composed 
too largely of meat will develop any latent disease of the kidneys 
or of the liver, and may precipitate conditions that will quickly 
become fatal. Therefore the less meat tissue you eat, the less will 
be the danger of developing latent diseases of these organs. 

5. A laborer whose liver is very active will need the meat tissue 
in connection with the juices, as the food will stay longer by him; 
just as coffee will retard digestion and hold the food longer in the 
stomach. It is a benefit to a hard toiler to retain the food as long 
as possible, if its condition is normal. Fermentation that follows 
the eating of food that cannot be digested, is injurious; but slow 
digestion is an advantage to a soldier or a toiler. Therefore the 
whole meat, which means the tissue and the juices, is better; and 
the use of coffee before and not after work. The hearty and healthy 
laborer should never take meat or coffee after his work for the day 
is done; and tests have proved this law to be the best for him. 

6. The first or main stomach is the only stomach known to the 
general mind; and its chief duty is to digest animal food. But 
ninety per cent, of the digestive work is done after the food leaves 
the first stomach. It makes no impression on starchy foods. 

7. The fat of meat is only a fuel for the work of the mind, the 
nerves and the muscles. The juices are plasm, and are therefore 
the direct tissue builder of the human body. The connecting fiber or 
tissue of flesh serves merely to hold the plasm and give shape to 
the various parts of the body. Any normal stomach will break 
up a piece of meat, and the less it is chewed the more beneficial 
it is to the laborer. The reverse is true of starchy foods: unless 
they are chewed until very fine, and mixed with saliva, they will 
be hard to digest in any part of the system. Animals do things by 
instinct. Give a dog or cat a piece of meat, and it will bolt it in 
chunks; give it a piece of bread, and it will chew it a long time,, 
if eaten at all. 

8. The difference between the plasmic cell, which is the basis of 
all vegetable life, and the plasmic cell which is the basis of all 
animal life, is not known; except that the sap of plants carries the 


ANIMAL FOODS. 


79 


chemical composition of plants, and the blood of the animal carries 
the chemical composition of the latter. Yet these are almost if not 
quite alike. Thus the juice of raw wheat that has been chewed for 
a long time in the mouth is chemically the same as the blood of 
raw steak. But a diamond and a piece of charcoal are chemically 
the same. 

9. The trifling difference between the juice of wheat and pure 
blood is one of the smallest incidents and arrangement. Blood con¬ 
sists of plasma and organized cells, known as corpuscles; but, even 
then, it is chemically the same as vegetable cells. It is composed 
of the latter and can have no other origin. The vegetable cell is, 
therefore, the basis of all animal life. 

10. A certain influence is required to change vegetable plasm 
(cells) into animal plasm (cells), and that influence comes from 
the presence of bacteria which are everywhere abundant. Bacteria 
carry the life-principle, or spark of life, into everything that has 
life. When you sterilize food, you kill its good and its bad bacteria; 
and that food will not be wholesome until other good bacteria settle 
in it. Too much sterilizing and too much cooking, therefore, 
render good food useless. This is seen in meat that has had all 
life cooked out of it; animals fed exclusively upon it starve to 
death. 

11. For fear our unscientific readers will think we contradict 
ourselves, we will state that raw wheat is full of bacteria; but 
bread, or wheat, or cereals in any form, that is but briefly cooked, is 
coagulated starch that is indigestible, and is also sterilized. Please 
try to remember these facts. A long period of cooking is necessary 
in order to restore the digestibility; but bread that has been cooked 
long enough for health is sterilized if hot, and for that latter reason 
should not be eaten. Just as soon as it begins to cool it collects 
bacteria from the air. The microscope shows hot bread to have 
no bacteria, cool bread to be abundant with them, and old bread 
to be literally loaded with them from centre to surface. All these 
bacteria are valuable to the health; but, in proportion as they are 
scant, the vitality will run low. 

12. It is a provision of nature that the good, or health-building, 
bacteria are to have first chance at everything; and that the cold or 
heat required to kill them shall be more intense than that required 
to, .kill disease-making bacteria. The latter are really intended to 
eat up the toxins or poisons that are constanly being developed in 


80 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


any form of life; and were they not present there would be no 
safety. Thus the two classes of germs perform the two following 
duties: 

The health-builders impart vitality to all life, without which all 
things would become dead. 

The poison-eaters follow after the work of the health-builders 
and clean up the dangers they cause. 

There is no form of life that does not emit poisons, just as the 
power of the locomotive is expressed in the death-gases it sends 
forth and the ashes that clog its furnaces. The human body is all 
the time doing exactly these two things; but the body is given 
the faculty of throwing off its gases and its ashes by its own action; 
and it is only when this action refuses to work perfectly that the 
conditions that invite disease are sure to follow. 

The clogging of the system begins with the ashes in the intestines 
and thence spreads throughout the blood and all the organs. Meat 
tissue is an irritant and a poison to the membranes of the intes¬ 
tines, and can be disposed of only when there is plenty of activity 
following the eating of whole meat. 

A sedentary person who eats meat tissue is sure to develop more 
or less of intestinal irritation. Some recent experts in appendicitis 
claim that this new and rapidly increasing malady is due to meat- 
eating; the proof being advanced that men, women and children 
who eat much meat, meaning whole meat and not the fat or juices, 
are more likely to become victims of appendicitis. Our experi¬ 
ments and observations do not fully confirm this view. 

We have records of over eight thousand cases of persons who have 
had intestinal catarrh, which always foreruns appendicitis, and 
they include persons who have either been excessive meat-eaters, 
or users of foods made with baking-powders. It is true that appen¬ 
dicitis will follow the baking-powder habit when little or no meat 
is eaten, but it seems that all meat-eaters who have appendicitis 
are also more or less victims of the baking-powder habit; that is, 
they eat bread, cake and other articles of food made from baking- 
powder, and some of the most direct cases are traceable to the con¬ 
stant habit of indulging in pancakes made from self-raising flour 
as well as from flour raised by baking-powder. But any cakes, or 
biscuit, or bread, or pastry, or fritters, doughnuts, etc., that have 
been made with baking-powder, will leave their poisons on the 
coating of the intestines, where catarrh is likely to follow> and this 


ANIMAL FOODS. 


81 


always is the first step in appendicitis. Experiments prove these 
facts at all times. 

We have followed the history for over twenty years of persons 
who are advocates of a non-meat diet; and we find that they fly 
from one danger to another that is more serious. They discard 
meat, and take up a line of foods that are made from baking- 
powder, and the result is a sallow complexion, disordered liver 
and intestines, and constant catarrhs all through the body. Of 
the two evils, meat-tissue and baking-powder, the latter is by far 
the more dangerous. But in leaving meat they deprive themselves 
of the valuable fat, and also of the juices that are a direct plasm 
ready for becoming a part of human life. 

Lean meat is supposed to be a process of used-up life. 

Appendicitis, therefore, may be set down as due either to the 
excessive eating of meat-tissue, or the use of baking-powder pro¬ 
ducts, or of alum-made bread. 

As far as meat is concerned, the following summary may be 
helpful to the reader: 

1. A sedentary person should never swallow meat-tissue. 

2. A laborer or active person may eat whole meat, which in¬ 
cludes the tissue and its juices, provided whole meat is never eaten 
after the day’s activities are over. 

3. A sedentary person should depend upon rich soups, stews, ex¬ 
tracts, etc., from which the tissue has all been strained; or, if whole 
meat is at any time indulged in, it should be well chewed and the 
tissue not swallowed. The canned extracts of meats have been 
pronounced by analysts to be almost no better than urine as far 
as their food value is concerned. Such foods should be prepared 
at home. A Ralstonite is not a user of canned goods, or of package 
foods. 

4. Meat that is whole, which is meat-tissue and its juices, such 
as steak, a roast, or any of the ordinary ways of serving meat, 
should not be eaten by any person, sedentary or laborer, after the 
mid-day meal. But the juices alone of meat may be taken at any 
time of the day or night. 

5. Whole-meat contains the nitrogenous or muscular tissue, and 
when this is eaten after the mid-day meal, it remains in the system 
for fully ten hours, an active agent trying to get passage through 
a'hostile country, and this irritation disturbs the nervous system, 
and has more to do with insomnia than any other cause. 


S2 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


6. Meat that is overcooked is not nutritious; but when it is 
warmed over, or re-heated, or re-cooked, it is unfit for the table, 
unless it was really undone, or rare, on the first cooking and the 
surface has been removed in the re-cooking. Hash and stews 
are often made from well cooked meat done over again, and they 
are injurious. Coffee that is kept standing in the coffee-pot, or 
that is re-heated, is even more poisonous. Both methods are poor 
economy, for they invite the expense of sickness; yet are common. 

Beef is always bound to be the staple meat of the civilized world, 
just as wheat is the chief grain. Veal is not fit to be eaten, and 
is a direct poison in most cases; but a yearling steer makes ex¬ 
cellent meat. Lamb is next to beef, and mutton is next to lamb 
in value for flesh food. 

Pork has no value as food at any time, except in its fat; and 
this is best secured in the fat of ham or of bacon. Like distilled 
water, fat is the purified part of meat; just as the white of eggs 
is the purified form of that kind of animal food. Both are of the 
highest value if not ruined in the cooking. 

Lean pork should never be eaten, but the lean of ham may be 
thoroughly chewed and not swallowed, as the fat part that is em¬ 
bedded in the lean is of value. Frying the lean ham with the fat 
and using the grease hot on potatoes or toasted bread, is wholesome 
and valuable. Fresh lean pork is a poison that is more or less 
dangerous to any system. 

Sausages, for many reasons in addition to those given in this 
chapter, are dangerous, and no sensible person will eat them or 
allow them in the house. This rule applies to all forms of sausage, 
whether fresh, smoked, or otherwise obscured. It is so easy to im¬ 
pose upon the public in the whole meats, that the practice of selling 
preparations of disembodied animals ought not to be encouraged. 
It is safe to say that, if you could see the kind of material which 
goes into the sausage you would never eat meat again in any form. 

Our rule is to use sparingly of the following animal food, and 
never to touch it in any other form. 

Beef, steer (but never veal), lamb, mutton, chicken, hen, turkey, 
partridge, and some of the easily digested game; to which may be 
added the fat of ham, and bacon, if the fresh meats are not easily 
obtainable. 

Fish that is fat is the reverse of fat meat: it is hard to digest, 
and is lacking in value. Salmon, flounders, sole, haddock, halibut^ 


ANIMAL FOODS. 


83 


shad, red snapper, whitefish, trout, bluefish, smelt, mackerel and 
striped bass are good. 

There is but one kind of cured fish that is worth having on hand 
in the house, and that is salt codfish. It is very much undervalued 
in many parts of the country, but is a staple food in other parts of 
the world, and makes a large number of pleasant dishes. We do 
not recommend any other fish that is salted, smoked, dried or other¬ 
wise cured. 

It will be seen that there are not many kinds of meat to draw 
from. This is as it should be, for too much meat is eaten; and 
the more the people reduce their meat habit, the healthier they will 
become. Beef and steer meat, lamb, mutton and turkey, some 
fresh fish, and salt codfish, furnish enough variety of the tissued 
meat; much more, in fact, than is needed. Beef and lamb are 
really enough for the cut meats; while chicken and mutton appear 
best in broths, soups, etc., of which there is not enough eaten to-day. 

A man who is sedentary could get along with one cubic inch of 
meat each day, if taken as whole meat, and he should not swallow 
the tissue. A sedentary woman could get along with four-fifths of 
that amount. A cubic inch can be measured in many ways, and 
the quantity could be obtained even in round form or in a cup or 
almost any receptacle. When once the total quantity of meat that 
is represented by a cubic inch is ascertained, let the man of non- 
muscular habits see to it that he does not exceed that quantity, and 
the woman that she does not exceed three-fourths of it each day. 
If taken all in the morning meal, then no meat in solid form 
should be taken at noon; or the quantity may be divided between 
the morning and the noon meal. But no meat must be eaten at 
the evening meal by any person. 

The man who is muscularly active needs two cubic inches of 
whole meat each day, and he may swallow the tissue. A woman 
needs three-fourths as much. But no meat must be eaten at the 
evening meal. 

These rules do not apply to extracts, broths, etc., made from 
meat, as there need be no limit to them unless the mistake has 
been made of stewing meat into tiny shreds and then supposing that 
it is wholesome because there are no chunks; all such shreds should 
be kept out by the finest kind of straining. 

Far too much meat is eaten in America. It is not putting it too 
strongly to say that five times too much meat is eaten; and, in the 


84 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


hot weather, meat-eating is decidedly dangerous if carried to 
excess. The reduction to the cubic measurement above stated will 
work a reform in this respect that will surprise those who have had 
a hard time trying to keep well. All these statements are con¬ 
curred in by every intelligent physician in this land. 

We have always advised much less use of meat; and those who 
have been brave enough to accept our advice have been gratified by 
the results. The following is taken from a letter just at hand 
written by one of the most prominent of our American citizens: 
“ I could not, for a long time, come into the belief that the Ralston 
doctrine was right when it taught the reduced use of meat, for the 
little that it seemed to allow per diem was hardly enough to be 
called meat-eating. I tried it for four years, however, and under 
various circumstances. When I ate no meat for a few weeks, I 
became depressed. When I ate more than the Ralston quantity, 
I had intestinal trouble. When I got down to the minimum, I 
found that my health always grew better and remained so until 
some indiscretion did it injury. Prior to four years ago, I was not 
a Ralstonite and I suffered continuously from indigestion. The 
slightest bit or morsel of indigestible food would bring on a violent 
cold and grippy conditions/’ We have had several strong letters 
from persons who have become converted to the minimum meat- 
diet, who think their improvement fully miraculous. But one in¬ 
discretion is the turning-point toward ill health in all persons who 
have already gone their length before trying to live according to 
Ralston teachings. When once you are out of the woods, do not 
play with fate. 

Eggs are animal food, and the yolk is no better than the food 
on which the hens have fed. The white is the valuable part, as it is 
the albumin. This chemical compound is the basis of blood, and 
of all value in meat; it is the basis of the grains, the starchy food, 
the basis of bread, corn, rye, wheat, oats, peas, beans, and all else 
that is eaten. It is the life-material in seeds. It is life itself, 
without which there is neither food nor feeder. Therefore the 
white of an egg, and the plasma of meat, are identical with the 
albumin of bread and all cereals. A little heat will coagulate this 
albumin, and this is the reason why the grains can be eaten raw or, 
if cooked at all, they must be well cooked for fully two hours before 
the albumin is digestible. But the white of an egg, when once it is 
coagulated by heat, resists digestion for a long time in the stomach, 


ANIMAL FOODS. 


85 


and finally yields only when the stomach, by its bacteria, is able 
to break it np, and not all stomachs have the power to do this. 

The yolk of the egg contains the animal food, and the white is 
identical with vegetable food. It is a direct builder of blood and 
has many powerful qualities in establishing health. 

Milk is a vegetable cell-structure taken from animal life. It is 
plasmic when fresh, and hence is a direct aid to health. Pure milk 
is necessary to the diet of the world. 

Cream is not so good as butter, but is helpful to the body in the 
absence of natural fats. On the other hand, it hurts the liver and is 
heavy in the intestines. 

Butter is one of the best of the fats. It should be eaten freely 
on bread made as we have directed in the chapter devoted to that 
subject. There is no better single food to depend upon than bread 
and butter, if the bread is wholesome and the butter pure. 

Buttermilk is the separated part of cream after the butter has 
been taken out. It is good food, and has a special value in that it 
contains many of the health-building bacteria. 

Sour milk in any form, sour buttermilk, and curd cheese, or 
cream cheese that has been made from sour cream, are samples of 
the second class of bacteria, which hold a middle ground between 
the health-builders and the health-destroyers. It has been shown 
to be true that the milk that has just come from the cow is more 
easily digested than milk that has cooled and stood for hours, but 
and, again, that the milk that is about ready to turn sour is more 
easily digested than milk that has cooled and stood for hours but 
that is quite fresh as far as being near to souring is concerned; 
thus sustaining the law that the bacteria from the air are helpful 
to digestion. But the actual souring of milk or any of its products 
is the presentation of another class of bacteria; and these have 
been found to be easily digested by normal stomachs. Decayed 
cheese is alive with still another class of bacteria, and there are 
many persons who get the best of food from it. 

The blood is a river of flowing bacteria. All chemists and all 
students of any branch of the subject know this to be true. In fact, 
there could be no blood if there were no bacteria. They are like 
weeds and valuable plants; ©ne or the other will claim supremacy; 
and your health will depend on which wins in the long run. There 
is nothing that lives that does not dwell in the midst of its enemies; 
the grape, the fruit tree, the potato vine, the flower, as well as 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


bS 

each and every animal has its microscopic foes and its open 
enemies. The rot on the grape, plum, etc., the rust of the bean, 
the mildew of the pea, the yellow of the peach, the blight of the 
pear, the blemish on the rose leaf, and countless other forms of 
decay that kill, are due to bacterial enemies that creep stealthily 
into the life of the valued growth; and all that has high worth 
must face these secret foes and be protected from them if there is 
to be hope of life. 

Food is likewise doubly attacked; first by the health-building 
bacteria; and then later on by the health-destroying bacteria. In 
the human body as in the garden the weeds come last. It is a wise 
law of nature and one of the countless proofs of special design of 
the Creator toward humanity, that the ploughed land, if sowed at 
once, will send up its valued seeds into growing plants before any 
injurious weeds come up; for, if this rule were reversed and the 
weeds choked out the valued seeds, there would be no hope of 
securing food by culture. So in the human body, the good bacteria 
are given the first chance of uniting with the food and turning it 
into life plasm; failing to do which by the due process of digestion, 
the food is acted upon by the health-destroying germs, and diseases 
follow. There is no other way. 

All food turns to meat. 

The fruits, vegetables, cereals and all other forms of food must 
turn to meat before they will feed life in the body. The trouble 
with ready-made life, as in the animal food which is eaten, is that 
it has been turned into meat and has therefore gone to an ad¬ 
vanced degree of life, beyond which there is nothing for it but 
decay, for life is change, and the act of living is performed in the 
very operations that turn food into meat. Hence it will always be 
true that human life is stronger in proportion as it does its own 
meat-making and eats less of the meat that has been made by other 
animals. 

The desire for solid food, which is supposed to consist of meat 
and cereals, and possibly vegetables, is well founded, but meats are 
not solids in the sense that cereals are. All foods must be turned 
to fluid of a semi-milky character before they will make blood, 
and they must make blood before they will make the body. Hence, 
the nearer to the juice of meat one gets, the nearer will he get to 
the purposes of all eating which is to make blood. The cereals are 
longer in transition, and are therefore the true solids. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 




Blood Cleansers 


POTATOES . AND . VEGETABLES 


ONE-SIDED diet acts upon the normal functions of the 
intestines in such a way as to cause lack of absorption, 
which in time will produce impure and deficient blood. 
The skin then shows conditions that are akin to scurvy 
or other forms of eruption. 

The use of vegetables, if fresh, or in their so-called natural con¬ 
dition, is necessary to prevent the one-sided tendency of the diet. 

The nearer the food can be kept to its normal condition the more 
likely are all the operations of the body to remain normal and 
healthy. 

The white potato stands in relation to other vegetables in the 
same exalted position as wheat does in its relation to the grains. 
The white potato may be made humanity’s best friend in the de¬ 
partment of fresh vegetables; and it is fresh so long as it has not 
-changed from its fully matured and normal condition. 

When so cooked as to be mealy, it is as easily digested as any food 
that can be found. When so cooked as to be dense, soggy or waxy, 
it is totally indigestible, and may lead to dropsy and other morbid 
changes in the body. It is supposed that dropsy and many forms 
of rheumatism, as well as gastric catarrh, and the depressed state 
of the bowels are due to eating potatoes that are not mealy. There 
is no more dangerous article of diet than a waxy potato. 

This vegetable is well worth the little care that is required to 
watch it and keep it in the proper condition, as well as to properly 
cook it. It will richly repay the slight attention. Absolute indif- 

87 










88 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


ference to the making of bread is now in vogue except among Ral- 
stonites who live up to what they profess; and all do not. But why 
should this indifference be carried to the simpler form of food, the 
white potato ? It costs much more money in the long run to make 
good the loss of time and the expense of sickness which is sure to 
follow the use of the badly made bread and the slighted potato; for 
the mis-judgment of the public in these two leading articles of 
food is causing the general health to take a long toboggan slide. 

Not until the potato has developed its starch will it be digestible 
by any person, and it is not a question of robust health. The 
vigorous stomach may suffer less from its use, and its dangers are 
not so much to the stomach as to the walls of the intestines and 
to the kidneys. What is the use in eating a kind of food that is. 
wholly indigestible, and that at the same time weakens the intes¬ 
tines and prevents the kidneys from relieving the blood of its urea ? 
Surely these are dangerous conditions. And they follow the eating 
of new potatoes. But the question arises, What are we to eat 
when the old potatoes are all gone? 

In the olden times the kings of Egypt, knowing the possibility 
of famine in some years, and finding an abundance of corn in 
other years, got the idea that they could keep the corn stored away 
in great grain houses. So they looked ahead. 

Some articles of food are made for long keeping, and wheat, 
corn, the grains in general, the apple and the potato are among 
these. In fact, the potato takes the lead. It will not keep if left to 
keep itself. Even corn gets moldy if neglected; otherwise it will 
keep for years. What do you say of the man who will pay no 
attention to corn and allow it to spoil when a little care will keep 
it for a long number of years? 

The waxy condition of the potato is due to the fact that it sends’ 
sprouts which sap the starch of the potato and render the re¬ 
mainder of it, or what you generally eat in the late winter and 
spring, a mass of dense and empty gum that no human stomach 
can digest. 

Therefore it may be set down as a fact that new potatoes do not 
digest because the starch is yet undeveloped, and that old potatoes 
do not digest because the digestible part of them has been drawn 
out in the sprouting. Yet when a potato is mealy, its starch is 
much more readily digested than the starch of the grains. This 
important fact has been many times noted hy experimenters. 


BLOOD CLEANSERS. 


When the potato has grown enough to allow it to be baked into 
a mealy condition, then it can be eaten. After a while it will grow, 
if left in the ground, until it is well developed, and then it may be 
taken care of for a year or two and not sprout. This is done by 
having perfect potatoes selected, dried, wrapped each in a piece of 
paper, and then placed in cold storage. The latter has a cold 
current of air that will keep all dampness and all tendency to rot 
or sprout from the potato, and thus it will be found as good at the 
end of a year as when put into cold storage. There is but slight 
expense attached to the rental of a small space and almost any 
town or city possesses a cold storage plant for public use. The 
potatoes can be bought when they are low in price, say in the fall, 
and each one can be examined and the doubtful ones used at that 
time, while all the perfect ones will be sent to cold storage. In the 
months of May, June, July and August, when the new crop is de¬ 
veloping, you will have a food that is wholesome and digestible, 
besides being a decided advantage as an article of health diet, while 
your neighbors will be wondering why they are so distressed and 
irritable all during the heated term. 

Any potato that can be made mealy by any form of cooking may 
be regarded as digestible. The better way is always to bake them. 
Some cooks can get them meal by baking who never can do this 
by boiling. But if they are boiled so as to be mealy, they are just as 
good. The use of mashed potatoes is allowable only when they are 
mealy before they are mashed; but it is not wise to try to make 
soggy potatoes mealy by mashing and beating, or adding milk, as 
the sham will be just as indigestible as if they had not been mashed. 

The use of salt and milk with a potato that is mealy is the ideal 
food for any person, and is one of the very first departures from the 
nursing period in the life of the young child. This fact should be 
remembered by parents who do not know what to first give the 
infant when the weaning time comes. Its stomach will not digest 
new bread or any of the common kinds of bread now in use. It 
may, after some months of weaning, be able to digest bread that 
has been baked two hours and kept for two days and then toasted, 
for the starch is not the same as it is in new bread. Much distress 
is caused to children by giving them the bread that is mostly in use 
at the present day, and it is a shame that the indifference of the 
public has allowed the staple food of civilization to become a 
source of danger by barbarous methods in preparation. The mealy 


90 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


baked potato, with milk and a slight flavor of salt, is the starting- 
point in a diet either of a child or a grown person who is weak, 
and who needs starchy foods. If the starch of other grains, or even 
of most bread, would digest as easily as the starch of potatoes, there 
would be less sickness in the world. It is indigestion that causes 
the accumulation of poisons in the system, and the consequent 
diseases that follow. 

There are many ways of cooking potatoes that are capable of 
becoming mealy. We give some of them: 

The baked form is the best, having the jackets on. 

The mealy boiled form is the next best. 

Mashed potatoes, using cream or milk, with butter and salt, 
are always excellent if the mashing and dressing are not done to 
conceal an unfit condition of the potato. 

The roasted potato is also excellent. This is done by first boil¬ 
ing it until done, then placing it in the pan with some roasting 
meat, and allowing it to cook there for about an hour. It may be 
put in the pan about an hour before the meat is done, and must be 
basted or gravied as often thereafter as the meat is thus treated. 
The prolonged cooking of the potato adds to its value as food, just 
as the long period of baking a potato makes it all the more diges¬ 
tible and nutritious. 

Potato salad is healthful, owing to the olive oil dressing. It is 
made of boiled mealy potatoes cut when cold into chunks and 
served with the olive oil salad dressing. Por an evening meal in 
summer it is refreshing and appetizing. 

The habit of frying potatoes is injurious to persons of weak 
health, for two reasons. In the first place, the potatoes are not 
cooked long enough. In the second place, any crisp part of the 
fried potato, which is undoubtedly very palatable, is totally indiges¬ 
tible in any stomach. This is a lesson to those who preach the 
doctrine of eating what is relished. Let any hundred persons in 
health be selected at random and given baked potatoes three times a 
day with milk and salt on them; and also bread and butter; a bit of 
meat, and other things as required in the High Regime, and they 
will thrive on the diet, so that at the end of a month they will show 
a decided improvement in health, and especially in complexion and 
brightness of eye and clearness of brain. At the same time let any 
other hundred persons be given the same conditions, except that 
they are to have potatoes fried crisp instead of those that are baked; 


BLOOD CLEANSERS. 


91 


and they are to select such other foods as they relish; and they will 
all be candidates for the drug shop and the doctor. Their heads 
will ache, they will have muddy eyes, foul breath, yellow com¬ 
plexion, such as women cover with powder to make presentable, and 
they will be developing no end of chronic maladies throughout the 
body. We have made this experiment scores of times and under 
all circumstances, employing thousands of people in the making of 
them; and we therefore speak with authority. Now, which is the 
better, to suffer for the sake of pleasing the palate, or to enjoy 
life and compromise with that palate of yours ? 

Let the question be answered by the sensible people of our land. 

It is true that, if the potatoes are boiled to a mealy condition, 
and then laid away for frying as needed, they are perfectly diges¬ 
tible if the crisp parts are not eaten But who is willing to let the 
better tasting portion of the fried potato go ? 

Potatoes that are boiled and fried as just described have an ad¬ 
vantage over others in the slight particular that the grease in which 
they are fried, if not crisp, is a valuable food in winter. People 
do not eat enough fat, such as is found in the form of butter, or fat 
of meat, to keep up the winter vitality and warmth, and they are 
consequently not as warm as they should be, nor as full of life. 
Fat will always be needed as long as the race is as it now is. In 
order to make fat acceptable to the stomach it must be eaten with 
dry food, such as dry potatoes, dry bread, etc., and this combination 
is had when the potatoes are not too greasy when fried, or the bread 
is not too fresh when buttered. Toasted old bread with potatoes 
fried in butter or fat will balance the tendency to get the fat too 
freely. In the North the Esquimo tribes eat the fat as we do 
bread; without it they would freeze to death. 

The other vegetables are much more difficult to get in the proper 
condition, and for this reason the greatest care should be taken of 
the potatoes so as to have them from one August to the next August, 
for they are generally too new before that month. 

Asparagus should be given full attention, for it has great value 
in the spring months. It lasts from six weeks to three months. It 
is better to have your own asparagus bed if you have some land. A 
small plot will provide enough for a family, and there is not much 
expense attached to keeping the bed in condition. 

Leaves, such as spinach, beet tops, dandelions, etc., are valuable 
ns articles of vegetable diet if properly cooked. 


92 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Cabbages are indigestible despite the fact that they are eaten so 
freely and liked so well. 

Few sedentary stomachs can digest beets, carrots, turnips, onions, 
parsnips, and the like; but the very young beets and parsnips are 
good if chewed thoroughly and the residue pulp is not swallowed. 
A coarse stomach will take all these vegetables in any condition, 
even raw, or old, as well as young, and not suffer from them unless 
the intestines are weakened by their too frequent use. 

The much loved onion is wholly indigestible in any form, whether 
young, old, raw or cooked. It seems too bad. The practice of 
chewing a young, raw onion well salted, and not swallowing the 
pulp, is not injurious to a strong stomach, and there is some value 
to the juice. An old onion well cooked in milk, or dressed with 
milk, is good if the pulp is not swallowed. The constant use of 
vegetable pulp that is indigestible soon takes the tone out of the 
stomach and so debilitates the intestines that they rebel by re¬ 
fusing to absorb good nutrition when it comes their way. It must 
be remembered that more than nine-tenths of all digestion takes 
place in the body below the stomach, and the habit of sending down 
food that cannot be digested soon results in rebellion against all 
food. This makes the eating of the supposed harmless foods that 
do no good a dangerous practice. 

Vegetables stewed to a soup with meat, and then so strained as 
to get rid of all the vegetable pulp, are excellent and appetizing. 

Tomatoes are not wholesome, and the more they are used the 
greater will be the tendency to set up rheumatic pains in the body, 
no matter how robust may be the health. The tomato contains 
oxalic acid. If you have iron rust on your clothing and will boil 
the latter in water with oxalic acid, the rust will come out; or if 
you will use tomatoes instead of the oxalic acid, the rust will come 
out just as quickly. A few tomatoes will not do any immediate 
harm if you are not disposed to rheumatism, but uric acid follows 
the presence of oxalic acid in the blood, and when you have uric 
acid you are equipped with the basis of many of the most distress¬ 
ing of modem maladies. It seems strange that so many palatable 
foods should have to be discarded; but then does it not seem 
strange to you that, in this beautiful world, there should be so much 
sickness, so much suffering, and so many untimely deaths? Can 
these latter conditions prevail without a cause ? Are you willing to 
obey your palate or your brains? As a good Ralstonite, take hold 


BLOOD CLEANSERS. 


93 


of this matter and aid humanity to find their way back to safe 
ground once more, in order that the fearful cost of sickness may 
be averted and the resources of time, money, vital power and effort 
may be turned into the channels of true prosperity. 

Not everything that grows and that can be eaten by humanity is 
good for food. Boots, grains, leaves and fruits are abundant, but 
they are more or less beneficial, or else are more or less injurious. 
It is a fact that nearly every weed contains some food value, for the 
very life of the soil is food, even though most of it is also poisonous. 
The ability of the human stomach to control the rougher kinds of 
growth depends on habits of life. A wild man will eat what would 
kill a sedentary person. 

Very young green peas are valuable as food, and will be as¬ 
similated by almost any stomach. The younger they are and the 
fresher they are, the better they will be. As green peas get older 
they form starch and hard coverings, and cannot be digested then 
unless altogether raw, or else are cooked for a long time. Brief 
cooking will coagulate all kinds of starch-producing food, and the 
coagulated part is wholly indigestible. 

If you have access to cold storage, and have a piece of ground, 
you can raise and control a supply of young green peas for several 
months in every year. Only the deeply wrinkled kind are the best. 
Never plant the smooth pea, nor those that are but slightly 
wrinkled. Pick them when a little over half size in the pod. Put 
them at once away in cold storage in baskets, of half a bushel each, 
and keep them in the pods. The circulation of cold air in cold 
storage is drying and prevents mold, while the low temperature 
prevents aging. We eat such peas weeks after they are placed in 
our little cold storage building which we have built at our summer 
home, and which we fill in the winter from a nearby pond at very 
slight expense. 

This method will give you fresh green sugar peas day by day 
from the first of June until the last of July, if you plant a suc¬ 
cession properly, and it will also enable you to put the excess in cold 
storage. Use the freshly picked peas each day, or every other day 
as you wish, taking them from the vines as near to the time of cook¬ 
ing as you can. 

But of all the summer vegetables, snap beans are the most whole¬ 
some because their pods are not concentrated and yet are edible. 
Beans may be picked daily in such a way as to take all those that 


94 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


have rounded their pods, and yet are not advanced to the stringy 
condition, and leave the others to become sheet beans, for they too 
are very useful. Beans admit of a long succession in growing, as 
they can be put in the ground in the spring soon after peas, and can 
be kept going until October by care in maintaining the succession. 
They are more prolific than peas, and do not mildew during the 
summer, as the pea vines do when planted much later than the 
first of June. 

Potatoes and true vegetables are anti-scorbutic. Very young 
peas and snap beans, as well as leaves, tubers, etc., are anti-scorbu¬ 
tic ; but the bean when developed enough for shelling is only 
partly so. The quality is in the pod when very young and tender. 

By the appointment of a local committee in your community, you 
could arrange for fresh vegetables and for their being kept, so that 
the total expense all the year through would not be any greater than 
that which you now bear; and the advantages would be that you 
would get your food in a condition that makes it a thousand times 
more nutritious; to which must be added the saving in doctors’ 
bills, sickness, suffering, cost of drugs and loss of time. It would 
require but a little precaution and very little effort to bring about 
this change for the better. This pooling together has been done, 
and is now a growing trait of Balstonites. By combining they all 
get goods at wholesale rates, even groceries, etc., and are not cheated 
by the inferior grades which are kept by the stores. 

Celery may be well chewed, but its pulp is indigestible, and 
should not be swallowed. Soups may be made and the fiber strained 
off, which will give the valuable juices of the celery and none of the 
danger. A strong stomach may swallow the pulp of raw celery, 
but in time the intestines will refuse to absorb much of the 
nutritious food if it is given the indigestible kinds. 

The same is true of cucumbers. Let them be chewed and the pulp 
not swallowed. Many a person has died of summer complaint fol¬ 
lowing the use of cucumbers, and no one pretends that they have 
any value as food. They tempt the sluggish appetite, but a good 
Ralstonite never has this about him. Sluggishness of liver, or 
stomach, or brain, or appetite, is due to the accumulation of too 
much useless food in the system. Be sensible and no such condi¬ 
tion will arise. 

Radishes are wholly indigestible, but a strong stomach may take 
care of them in small quantities for a while. In time they will 


BLOOD CLEANSERS. 


95 


prevent the intestines from absorbing the nutrition from the whole¬ 
some foods. If radishes are to be eaten at all, let them be chewed 
and the pulp not swallowed. Do not place too heavy a mortgage on 
the future willingness of the digestive system to do its duty; when 
it begins to rebel it may take years or forever to get it back from its 
strike. 

Sweet potatoes may be used by strong stomachs for a change, but 
not oftener than once a week. They must be mealy when cooked, 
and even then cannot be digested by the delicate stomach. 

Yams, or the red-hued potatoes, are somewhat more digestible if 
mealy. They, however, like the sweet yellow kind, are not the 
food for invalids or weak health. 

Salsify, or oyster plant, has some value, but the crisp parts when 
fried are not digestible. 

Sauerkraut will go through the body just as it enters the 
stomach. Cauliflower is digested by very strong stomachs. It 
would be a source of danger to a person of weak health. 

The egg-plant is related to the tomato, and is equally unac¬ 
ceptable to the system. When fried it is even worse. 

Ehubarb leads to gouty conditions, like gooseberries, or cran¬ 
berries, and should be carefully discarded from every diet whether 
for the sick or the well person. No man or woman is so well as 
to be able to stand in the long run the use of cranberries, rhubarb, 
gooseberries; and the people who most eat them are the most 
afflicted with rheumatism and all those ills that follow the accumu¬ 
lation of uric acid in the body. Life is one long train of suffering 
after uric acid is developed, for it will not go out under any or¬ 
dinary treatment. Like mercury, it stays for a lifetime in most 
cases, and living is worse than death. It is caused almost exclu¬ 
sively by the food that is eaten. 

Pickles, and pickled forms of any vegetable or fruit, will drive 
the red corpuscles out of the blood and will set up conditions known 
as atrophy and anaemia. They are not food; why eat them ? 

Lettuce is always good and always refreshing if eaten with olive 
oil. It does no harm in any event. In diabetes it is very useful. 

Garlic and leeks are not to be recommended for any purpose; 
but a very strong stomach can digest some parts of them. 

Squashes, pumpkins and the summer varieties of the so-called 
squash are good for bulk when cooked with milk. They do not 
leave the intestines in a weak condition as do many of the bulk 


96 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


vegetables. It is not advisable to eat any squash or pumpkin un¬ 
less it has been cooked with milk. As a side dish on the dinner 
table, or in pies, it may be eaten, provided the pie-crust is not 
allowed to enter the stomach 


CONCLUDING PRINCIPLES. 

1. Vegetables serve the purpose of making bulk, and admitting 
juices to the intestines that purify the blood, reduce the tendency 
to constipation, and keep the skin clear and free from eruptions. 

2 . The valuable juices of vegetables are acids that cool the blood 
and stimulate the intestines, whereby the latter are enabled to 
better absorb the nutrition from all food, especially from the 
grains. 

3. The juices of those vegetables that we have shown to be indi¬ 
gestible may cause the excess of acid in the system, and the next 
step is the development of uric acid, an almost indissoluble chem¬ 
ical compound that leads to pains, swellings and derangement of the 
functions of life. 

4. Vegetables consist of their juices and the covering of the 
juice-cells, called the fibrous part. When this fibrous part is in¬ 
digestible, as in old beets, old turnips, old parsnips, carrots, cauli¬ 
flower, cabbage, cucumber, onions, sweet potatoes, green corn, old 
peas, old beans, radishes, etc., and in the crisp part of any fried 
meat, fritter, potato or vegetable, then all this indigestible mass 
passes along the membrane of the intestines, and there seeks ab¬ 
sorption, but is denied; and it becomes foul at times, or else pro¬ 
duces irritation and weakness, with the result that the intestines, 
as an act of self-defence, will refuse to absorb any food. 

5. Inasmuch as the intestines are ordained by nature to do 
ninety per cent, of all the digestion of food, their refusal to act on 
any that comes along leads to the filling of the system with poisons 
which are the toxins on which all bacteria feed. Here we have 
the whole story of disease and ill health. 

6. There are many vegetables that pass out of the body in the 
same condition as when they enter, as is the case with new corn and 
many other kinds which we have described in this long chapter; and 
doctors have for generations held to the theory that, even if’they 
do no good, they are harmless from the fact that they contain no 



blood cleansers. 


97 


violent poisons. But the later experiments have shown that harm¬ 
less vegetables and foods are dangerous by reason of the new trait 
they teach the intestines; that of becoming depressed, inactive, 
weak and non-absorptive of the good foods when they come along. 
Habit is the key to any function of the body. 

7. It is not generally taken into consideration that the change 
from a meat and grain diet, which is the main diet of winter, to 
that of fresh vegetables, sets up new habits that the system will not 
consent to for a while; and, no matter how wholesome the new 
vegetables are, they lead to neuralgic pains in six cases out of 
seven. The antidote to this tendency is not to lessen the new 
vegetables, but to add more bread of the kind that has been baked 
two hours, kept for a day or so and then toasted. The combination 
will prove good for the health; but the use of fruits and vege¬ 
tables when neuralgic pains set in must be lessened, as fruits alone 
may cause the trouble. After the system gets used to the change 
the pains will pass off for good. But the bowels must be kept 
sound. Looseness combined with neuralgia is dangerous and much 
to be feared. Boiled milk, in which old toasted bread is dipped, 
and eggs cooked just enough to heat them without hardening, with 
a cessation of all vegetables and fruits until the bowels are normal, 
will be found the natural cure. 

8. The change to the diet of meat and grains, after the use of 
fresh vegetabes, will be a very severe tax on the kidneys. The 
better way is compromise, and a very gradual passing from one 
kind of diet to another. The stomach is made for habits, and not 
for radical shiftings of diet, except as means of cure. 

9. Meats are so largely nitrogenous, and so are vegetables, that 
the two are not best when taken together; for they do not balance 
each other. Bread and potatoes can and should be eaten three 
times a day all the year round; but meat ought to be omitted at 
all meals where the non-starchy vegetables are used, such as the 
fresh green kinds. Potatoes are like bread in the fact that they 
contain starch, and they have from twelve to twenty-four per cent, 
of starch; these two staple articles being a good balance for meats. 
The fresh vegetables, such as green peas, snap beans, lettuce, 
asparagus, young beets, young parsnips, etc., which are not hurt¬ 
ful, are more readily assimilated if meat is omitted at the meal 
when they are eaten. This has been the subject of some two 
thousand experiments by our club during the year 1904 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


Deat^F oods 


CAKE, - PIE, - PASTRY - AND - DESSERT 


LARGE margin is allowed by nature in the make-up of 
the human system for the mistakes that are sure to- 
be made by frail minds in the use of food. 

There is no logical reason why wholesome flour 
should be ruined by the addition of other wholesome 
articles. The flour itself is surely good for the health. Butter 
is good. Sugar is good. Eggs are good. And, therefore, why 
should two or more of these articles turn out to be bad ? 

Most persons can, if in fair health, eat straight sugar, and it will 
not hurt them. They can also eat raw eggs to their advantage. 
Why, then, should the mixing of sugar and eggs prove hurtful ? 
This simple preparation of two good things will so affect the 
stomach that it will become nauseated. Indeed, it is a fact that 
some stomachs will become so irritated by sweetened eggs that 
they will suffer tortures for a long time. You would never think 
of eating sugar on eggs. Nor would you eat a mixture consisting 
of two eggs and a pound of sugar. Try it and note the result. 
Yet people eat cake which is made of eggs and sugar. The result 
is that some injury is done the digestive tract, and something has 
been taken from the vitality. 

Butter is wholesome. It is a necessity. No person can get along 
without it and retain the best of health. Butter-haters are out of 
condition in some way. Butter and sugar may be taken separately 
and no harm will ensue; but when taken as a mixture they are- 
poisonous to a greater or less extent. 

98 












DE AT- FOODS. 


99 


Butter and flour are naturally adapted to each other, and the 
habit of heavily buttering the bread is an excellent one. Butter 
and eggs are adapted to each other under limited conditions. 
Eggs and flower or grains are suited to each other. 

The danger comes when sugar is added. Sugar and eggs are 
enemies. Sugar and flour are sometimes enemies. Sugar and 
butter are enemies Sugar and eggs and butter are decidedly and 
always enemies; and there we have the cake that is ruining the 
stomach of the civilized world. We speak from a knowledge of 
a greater number of facts than any other organization in existence. 
We have made countless experiments and endless trials of the 
foods of mankind under all circumstances. We have no theory to 
maintain and no notions to set forth. We are after the facts just 
as they are. The truth is all-important. 

There are many foods suited to the human stomach in certain 
combinations that are wholly unfitted for it in others. Some 
wholesome foods when combined are certain poisons. Some are slow 
and subtle poisons. The fact that no immediate injury is felt 
leads most persons to go on using them; and, when the breakdown 
comes, they ascribe the cause to something else. The real cause 
is the slow and steady piling up of unfit foods in the system, each 
meal leaving toxins that are too insignificant to be noticed when 
alone, but which bring their dangers in their repetitions and ac¬ 
cumulation. 

We do not assume to say that all such foods will do harm to all 
persons. The test is this: 

If you are subject to colds, or to neuralgia, or to rheumatism, 
or to a dizzy feeling in the head, or to constipation, or to weak 
heart, or to flatulenc)', or to rolling noises in the intestines, or to 
any form of ill health, then you should avoid the combinations of 
food mentioned in this chapter. 

This means that if any one of the above symptoms is present 
in your case, you should overcome it before you make free to 
state that YOU are exempt from the dangers of wrong food-com¬ 
binations. If you do not take heed in advance you will surely 
pay the penalty sooner or later, and it will be expensive. 

We do not believe in dieting, unless you are actually ill; and 
then the diet must be scientific and accurate, as well as specifically 
adapted to each kind of disease. This scientific accuracy will be 
found in the book of Complete Membership. 


L. of G, 


100 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Alum is a slow poison. 

Most baking-powders contain alum, despite the affidavits to the 
contrary. In addition to the short period of cooking, the use of 
a poison is certainly not a sane proceeding for people who pretend 
to be civilized. Here are double dangers. The eating of foods 
that are made with baking-powders is in itself the proof of the facts 
we state. You may take any one hundred strong men and feed 
them for a month on foods made with baking-powders, excluding 
all other kinds, and they will either be dead or in a state of collapse. 
Let any hundred men be fed on the wholesome parts of the very 
same kinds of food for a month, omitting the baking-powders and 
cooking the food for the full length of time, and the result will be 
just the opposite. 

These are facts; not theories or arguments. 

It is true that there are many articles of diet that are Cooked 
with baking-powder; but, before the invention of this quick way of 
half cooking food, their absence was unnoted. 

Pie-crust is even more dangerous than cake and baking-powder 
products. It consists of flour feebly cooked and greased. So 
absurd is it as an article of food that we are not warranted in 
discussing it. It has slain its millions, and is sending many 
people daily to untimely graves. Its work is done quietly. Time 
is the chief factor. Distress is hardly noticeable for months, un¬ 
less the use of pie-crust is excessive, but the slow undermining of 
the digestive system is all the while going on. No one suspects 
the real cause. The doctor who would think of announcing that 
the invalid with gastritis is the victim of rich food, such as cake, 
pie-crust, etc., would be laughed at; so he says the system is out 
of order from overwork, and the individual begins to pose as a 
martyr to the duties of life. 

Puddings come under the same category, if they are made 
either by the mixture of eggs with sugar, or with butter, or sugar 
with butter, or are cooked for a brief while only. 

Sauces composed of butter and eggs, or sugar and eggs, or 
sugar and the white of an egg, or cream with eggs or sugar, are 
open to the same objections. They may please mightily, but they 
are enemies of the health. 

The custom of joining butter with sugar as a syrup for pancakes, 
buckwheats, etc., is one of the most injurious that can be indulged 
in; yet many a breakfast, which should consist of plain and health- 


D EAT -FOODS. 


101 


ful foods, is given over to this wretched diet, because it tastes so 
much like candy. The pancakes, buckwheats, waffles, etc., are 
wholly indigestible and destroy the tone of the stomach for the 
day. They produce irritation, yet they set the pace for the day 
time and time again, especially on warm summer mornings, and 
the poor victim is hot and distressed all through the long hours 
of the forenoon and afternoon. He takes to drink, or something 
with a “ bite ” to cool off the inflamed stomach and the boiling 
blood. If he had had enough sense to have opened the day with 
a meal that was healthful he would have found the summer not 
half so oppressive; nor would that drink have been craved. We 
can prove that the use of a wholesome diet will stop all desire for 
the drinks that furnish the stimulant to hold up the system under 
the load that is given it by the irritating food. 

We met a party of school teachers at a summer resort who 
wished to get at some of the facts. Most of them did not believe 
that care was necessary. The summer was unusually hot. The 
teachers had been advocates of the doctrine of relish; that is, 
eat what you like and omit what you do not like. Many of them 
had been severely distressed during the hot spell. There were 
eighty-four of them, and they had four weeks yet before them. 
By lot half of the number were drawn to proceed on the doctrine 
of relish; and the other forty-two were to follow out the Ralston 
doctrines for such length of time as seemed to them sufficient to 
test them. The first half suffered all the time. Not one of them 
was free from some abnormal condition. 

The other forty-two grew gradually less and less irritable. 
They found the hottest days agreeable, for they did not have fitful 
spells of perspiring and rush of blood to the head, nor any form 
of oppressing dullness such as attends blind indigestion in the 
heated season. These forty-two converted the others, and all 
eighty-four went away with the resolution that people are much in 
the wrong who do not think the question of diet worth studying 
and following all the time. The use of brains in connection with 
the seasons and the foods that are best adapted to the various 
kinds of climate and weather, will bring comfort and freedom from 
suffering; and these rewards are surely more productive of happi¬ 
ness than the mere taste of sickly foods that please only as they 
are passing through the mouth. 

What say you to this idea? 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


_ 

Caddies ai}d Sweets 


CHOCOLATES, . CARAMELS, ♦ FONDANT, . CREAMS 


OMETHINGr besides nutritive food seems to be necessary 
to satisfy the human appetite. The craving for carbon 
in one form or another is universal. Sugars, candies 
and starches furnish this much desired carbon, and 
these are all capable of fermentation into alcohol. In¬ 
deed the latter is nothing but carbon and water in certain pro¬ 
portions. It is a well known fact that men who crave candy are 
less likely to crave alcoholic drinks; as the candy supplies the 
carbon desired. 

A limited quantity of sweets is advantageous to the system; 
and, for this reason we present a chapter upon the subject. 

CHOCOLATE AND COCOA. 

Chocolate on the market to-day contains the husks of the cocoa 
bean, and these husks are not only indigestible but they are sharp 
and cutting to the membrane of the stomach and especially to the 
alimentary canal. Few brands of chocolate are free from this 
danger, and it seems that those that are most widely advertised as 
the purest are the most adulterated. A microscope will surely 
show the sharp bits of husk ground as fine as machinery will grind 
Ifiem, but not fine enough to escape the eye of this little instrument, 
the irritation caused to the digestive system by this danger is so 
great that the most to be feared of all disorders, catarrh of the 
intestines, is almost sure to follow in time; and it is catarrh that 
leads ^to appendicitis, for that malady is the sloughing off of the 



















CANDIES AND SWEETS. 


103 


■covering of the vermiform appendage after being weakened by 
catarrh. The claim that the medical profession is constantly dis¬ 
covering new diseases is bound to be true, for new forms of food 
Adulteration are always to be made. 

The wickedest of all crimes seems to us to be the addition of 
poisons to chocolate in order to lessen its cost in the making of 
confectionery and cheap grades for cooking. Some is darkened, 
some is made of a light yellow color, some is given bulk, and some 
is made attractive in a peculiar reddish brown, and these results are 
attained by scores of subterfuges. The old way of weakening the 
natural bitter taste of chocolate was by the addition of about sixty 
per cent, of sugar and starch, the only advantage being the indiges¬ 
tibility of the starch without thorough cooking. It was found that 
these apparently harmless ingredients were a severe tax on the 
kidneys, even when the chocolate was free from the ground husks. 
Fine starch uncooked and swallowed without a slow and thorough 
mixing with the saliva, goes through the system almost unchanged 
and holds up much of the urea which the kidneys ought to throw 
off, thus leading to a urine-blood which is very poisonous. The 
action is slow and requires time, but there comes at length a 
series of dull headaches which seem unexplainable. 

The adulterators of chocolate to-day are not content with the 
mere addition of starch and sugar; they add earth ochre, walnut 
juice, brown paint, various pigments and chemicals, and even 
mud. The fact that the chocolate bears the name of the maker 
stamped on it is no guide to its purity. Some chocolates are 
pure except for the starch and sugar they contain. We are testing 
a list of them, and may report to our members in the near future. 
But the trouble is that a brand that may be pure one year may be 
run into impure grades the next year, and members are likely to 
think that when we have once found any food pure our statement 
applies to all time. This makes the whole work misleading. 

Cocoa should never be used for any purpose, as it is made from 
the husks of the beans that make chocolate. These husks are 
ground into most of the chocolate of to-day. 

When a reasonably pure brand of chocolate is found, it is of 
service to a limited extent only. Being the result of ferment itself, 
all chocolate mixes well with sugar without causing extra ferment 
in the human system. It is one of the few articles where sugar, 
milk and the article itself will not distress the stomach. But it 


104 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


should be well cooked if it is to be drank. In the form of con¬ 
fectionery it is cooked in the making. Two kinds of chocolate 
candy are healthful if eaten on a full stomach. 

WHOLESOME CANDIES. 

Candy made rich by butter or mixed with nuts is indigestible 
and should never be eaten by any person, sick or well. Sugar and 
nuts are a bad combination for the digestive tract. 

The art of making candy at home is one that should be learned. 
The basis of much candy is fondant or white sugar cream such as 
enters into chocolate creams. Any person can learn how to make 
perfect fondant; it requires a little experience to get it right; the 
danger of failure being in letting the sugar or syrup go back to 
granulation. 

CREAM FONDANT. 

Take a quart of granulated sugar, to which add a pint of water 
and half a teaspoonful of cream of tartar, not heaping, but flat. Let 
it boil until it becomes creamy. Do not stir while it is boiling 
after the first minute, and do not allow any of the sugar that ad¬ 
heres to the sides of the saucepan to fall into the boiling syrup. 
Before testing it, which is done while it is yet boiling, have at 
hand a bowl of ice-water; dip the index finger in the water, then 
in the syrup, then back in the water, and repeat until the syrup 
seems creamy, which is ascertained by working the sample be¬ 
tween the fingers under water. Then it is ready to take off. Run 
it on a slab of very cold marble, which has been greased with olive 
oil. Do not stir it, and do not allow any drippings or hard sugar 
to fall into it. As it begins to cool it will form a skin, and when 
it is about blood warm, work it with a wooden paddle until it 
turns white, and when it gets too stiff to work with the paddle use 
the hands and knead it into a creamy mass. A little vanilla may 
now be added to flavor it. It requires experience to attain success 
at every trial; but the way to do it is to try again and again until 
the art is acquired. All fondant syrup that granulates should be 
used for caramels and re-used for making fondant. 

CHOCOLATE CREAM DROPS. 

Take a pound of fondant and a pound of chocolate; if in 
doubt as to the purity of the latter, seek out some brand that ha* 


CANDIES AND SWEETS 


105 


been before the public for forty or fifty years, and examine it 
under a microscope for ground husks. If the latter are present 
reject the chocolate and try again. The chocolates that have come 
before the public in the last few years, or in the last twenty or 
thirty years, are not generally free from some objection. 

Always warm the chocolate over hot water. Add the pound of 
fondant to the pound of chocolate and mix well. This is the dip. 
Before this is done, one pound of fondant should have been made 
into the desired size of drops and laid away on wax paper to dry. 
When dry, have the mixed dip ready and dip each cream into the 
mixture, rubbing it free from drippings as it is lifted out; then 
place it on wax paper to dry. 

CHOCOLATE CARAMELS. 

The following receipt has proved the best for eaters of candy 
who wish to avoid the effects of too rich a confection. Take two 
cupfuls of brown sugar, one cupful of molasses, one cupful of 
milk, and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Add a half cupful of chocolate, 
of the kind already referred to under chocolate creams. Let it 
boil without stirring for six to twelve minutes; and test it as the 
bubbles seem to get heavy. Use the finger in ice water as stated 
for fondant. When the sample is just beginning to get brittle 
under the water, remove and pour the caramel on a cold marble 
slab, keep the edges in to prevent it from becoming too thin. It 
can be lined off into squares before it gets hard. The slab should 
be greased with olive oil. 

These are the only two candies that should be eaten by any 
person under the Regime. 

One of the candies is fondant, and the other is caramel. The 
fondant encased in chocolate is merely fondant, and the chocolate is 
merely chocolate. In the caramel we have two healthful ingre¬ 
dients, and they are both excellent for the digestion if taken 
after a meal. One is milk and the other is molasses. We recom¬ 
mend the dark molasses, which has almost gone out of use. It is 
a food and a natural laxative; two essentials of fine health. 

In the summer time the use of ice is necessary. These candies 
can be made and kept packed in wax paper and tin foil for weeks 
or even months if placed in cold storage, which costs but little if 
you rent a square foot or so. All large cities have them. The 
practice now of sending fruits such as apples and pears to cold 


106 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


storage in some city is gradually becoming quite a business among 
orchardists. 

Make your candies at home, or in meetings of the Ralston Clan. 
Get pure sugar, and not confectioners’ sugar nor starch of that 
name. 

If you are not an expert at once, you can become one in a very 
short time if you try hard to follow the rules. Do not use butter 
in any candy. Avoid all receipts that call for the use of cream, 
butter or nuts. Get the right kind of candy and eat freely of it, 
and you will find your health growing better, if you remember the 
rule that it is to be eaten when the stomach is well filled with 
wholesome food, and never at any other time. Fondant may be 
spread on bread and so eaten, and the mixture of one-half choco¬ 
late and one half fondant, used as covering for creams, may be 
employed on bread in place of the fondant alone or in place of 
butter. 

Sugar is necessary for the health. 

Like oxygen it may make or it may kill the body. Oxygen 
alone is sure to kill. In certain combinations it is a necessity; in 
others it is a quickly acting poison. It has the two qualities of 
glucose; in its proper place as a part of corn it is wholesome; but 
in the form of glucose the nature of it has been so changed that it 
clogs the liver and the kidneys and leads to catarrh of the stomach 
and intestines. Thus good and evil are more in the way a thing is 
presented than in the thing itself. 

The advantages of home-made candies are very great. 

They save about eighty per cent, of the cost. 

They are pure. 

There is no chance for the adulterator to poison the public. 

They furnish excellent means of pleasure and social entertain¬ 
ment for young and old. 

They tend to revive the love of working about the stove, where 
the best of wholesome foods were cooked by members of the 
family in the good, old days of the past. 

The art of making candy at home does not depend altogether on 
the receipt or the directions. They are necessary. So, in bread¬ 
making, the proper receipt is required, but even then a novice 
could not make bread from the best guide in the world until ex¬ 
perience has given the true secret. 

If you use doubtful chocolate, you must watch yourself after- 


CANDIES AND SWEETS. 


107 


ward. Some brands hurt the stomach, some affect the heart, some 
clog the liver, and cause pains such as those in rheumatism or 
neuralgia. 

The fact that the maker of the chocolate or the confection 
stamps his name or initials on each piece does not warrant its 
purity. We have made many experiments and have the following 
results to report from the use of what has seemed to be the best 
chocolates: We gave to twenty persons each a moderate quantity 
of roasted almonds, covered with chocolate prepared by a first-class 
house. Every one of the twenty persons suffered from neuralgia 
for two days following the eating of the almonds. A month later 
we gave the same persons some roasted almonds covered with 
chocolate, made by another house, and not one of them suffered 
from neuralgia. We found twenty persons who were afflicted with 
neuralgia from a chronic condition of the nervous system, and we 
gave them some of the first lot of chocolate almonds, stripped of 
all their chocolate, and the eating of the almonds gave some relief 
to most of the twenty. A month later we gave them some of the 
first kind of almonds with all the chocolate on them, and all of the 
twenty persons were made much worse in their neuralgia. Then 
we came back to the first twenty persons and gave them the almond 
with the chocolate scraped off, taking the first kind, and they felt 
no unpleasant experiences; but a month later when we gave them 
some of the first kind with the chocolate on, they all had attacks 
of neuralgia, or else rheumatic pains. They did not hesitate then 
to ascribe the results to the kind of chocolate used. They de¬ 
clared that the experience was worth a great deal to them, as it 
gave them an insight into the way to ascertain the value and nature 
of food. 

Some chemicals or earths put in chocolate may not be injurious, 
but when such things are added as will bring on neuralgia in 
every instance, it seems that the silent struggle of the nervous life 
about the digestive tract may be going on in its own suffering and 
give no direct notice from the stomach itself; but is made known 
by nerves of the head, the eyes or the heart, where the danger is the 
greatest. 

What is true of chocolate is likely to be true of many other 
articles of food or drink. Neuralgia or rheumatic pains may be 
"the only warning that can be given. The stomach may not rebel 
for a long time after these distinct warnings are given. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


Fruits 


DOMESTIC ♦ FOREIGN . PRESERVED . FRESH 


f EMPTING fruits are everywhere placed within reach of 
man for the purpose of aiding the digestive system in its 
intricate work. A brief glance at the plan of furnishing 
life to the body reveals a very decided purpose in the 
uses of food. As sap must flow in a tree so blood must 
flow in the body; and, when the liquid in the blood has done its 
work, it must be thrown off by a special provision in the digestive 
plan. To do this work the kidneys are walled by sponges that 
absorb the watery part when it has reached the bread-down stage. 
But the kidneys become weak or inactive and diuretics are then 
given in order to quicken their action. Some fruits are particu¬ 
larly endowed with this diuretic quality; such as pears, watermelons, 
peaches, grapes, lemons, shadducks, oranges, apples and other very 
watery kinds. 

But water is not all the blood requires. It must have certain 
solids, certain acids, and certain qualities, all of which come most 
readily from fruits. For instance, iron is valuable to the blood, 
but the giving of it in artificial form has caused the breaking down 
of the lung-cells, whereby consumption has been introduced into 
bodies previously free from the scourge. Artificial food is that 
which is in unorganized form, as in medicine, gases and prepara¬ 
tions. If you take iron from a bottle it is artificial; but if you eat 
a peach that has drawn iron from the soil, you are eating the 
mineral in a natural condition, for it is organized in life-cells. 
Oxygen administered as a gas is artificial; but taken in the form of 










FRUITS. 


109 


a breath of vital air, as we shall show in the Regime chapters to 
follow, is organized and therefore natural. There are salts which 
the system needs, but which are not natural as found in water, as 
water has no organic structure into which these salts are woven; but 
fruits contain them; and the more you get of them the more 
vital all the operations of your body will become. 

Fruits also serve to keep the intestines in a fairly lax condition, 
which is the sign of the highest health. 

Fruits are decidedly antiscorbutic, and keep the skin pure and 
the complexion good under all ordinary circumstances. 

Some fruits hold a large proportion of nutriment; the banana 
taking the lead in this respect. 

Bananas should never be eaten on an empty stomach, as they are 
likely to prove dangerous when least expected to do so. Few per¬ 
sons know when a banana is in the proper condition to yield its 
nutrition to the body. The cells of the banana that seem ripe, but 
that is not fully so, contain starch that is wholly and absolutely 
indigestible by all persons. This fact has been overlooked by 
people who say that the banana is not easily digested. 

Between the point of being almost dead ripe, and the actual 
dead ripeness of the banana, there is a complete transformation of 
the most important character. Its starch that is so injurious to the 
stomach, is changed in a few hours into dextrin, which is one of 
the most nutritious as well as the most easily digested of substances. 

But by the time the indigestible starch of the banana is changed 
into dextrin the skin has become black. Now, if you allow the 
banana to pass too far beyond ripeness it will change into rot, 
which is always a source of still greater danger. 

There are twenty varieties of banana, but the yellow kind that 
comes to this country is of as high value as any obtainable. 

Banana flour is also highly nutritious, and makes a splendid diet 
for the invalid as well as for those who are in perfect health. 

The date, fig, prune and raisin are also nutritive fruits; and they 
should all have their place on the table or in the diet system of 
every person. 

The other fruits are, as a rule, non-nutritive. 

But they contain the other qualities we have mentioned. 

Fresh fruit contains the best form of distilled water; and dis¬ 
tilled water dissolves the limy or earthy deposits which clog the 
finer blood-vessels all through the body. These limy deposits are 


110 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


said to bring on the stiffness of old age; to clog the fine cells that 
make sight perfect, the tissue of the nerves of hearing, the arteries 
and blood-vessels of the heart, the circulation of the bones, and the 
general structure of the whole body, until decrepitude has taken all 
elasticity out of the form. 

As a proof of this claim, it is known that persons who drink much 
mineral water, or who are compelled to drink hard water, get 
aged much sooner than others; and we have recorded in our pre¬ 
vious works the cases of men and women who have become pre¬ 
maturely decrepit solely from the habit of drinking such waters. 

On the other hand, we have noted for twenty-three years the 
cases of thousands of other persons who have eaten the watery 
fruits quite freely, and have managed to get them the year round; 
and the result is exactly the opposite. Such fruit-eaters are 
much younger in appearance and possess great flexibility as well 
as freedom from stiffness. They reach extreme old age without 
aging. 

Our experiments with thousands of men and women to test this 
one point gave rise years ago to the claim that we taught the 
fruit diet as the means of health. But this was an unjust asser¬ 
tion. We advocate an all-round diet, as all our books and each 
additon of the present work will show. We have never taught a 
fruit diet. On the other hand, we have shown that too much fruit 
will bring on weakness of the intestines, and a low state of vitality. 
The equal of half a pint of fruit juice a day will be fully ample in 
the largest body to dissolve the lime deposits of the day, and lost 
time cannot be made up very fast, nor should it be attempted. 

The use of distilled water is not by any means a substitute for 
the fruit juices; for water is not organized, and distilled water has 
no bacteria; and water of all kinds, to be good for the health, must 
contain the health-producing bacteria. If the water, after dis¬ 
tillation, could be in the open air, or pass through it, the results 
desired would be obtained. Bain water is, next to fruit juice, the 
best agent for dissolving the lime deposits of the body. Provisions 
could be made for catching rain water, free from dirt, if a little 
ingenuity were used; and the water so secured would have great 
medical value if a solvent of the old age deposits can be called a 
medicine. We have advocated this for years; and some of our 
members have profited by the suggestion, to the extent that they 
catch and use the rain water as though it were precious gold. The 


FRUITS. 


Ill 


difference in the purity of the blood and the improvement of the 
health is remarkable enough to be the subject of much attention. 
But the majority of the members of the Club do not care to take 
the trouble to collect rain water, despite its great value in this 
respect. 

The fruits that yield these solvent juices are as follows: 
Oranges, fresh grapes, lemons, pears, peaches, plums, apples, cher¬ 
ries and blackberries. They should all be fully ripe; for a con¬ 
dition of almost-ripeness is not sufficient. There is a decided 
change from any fruit that is apparently ripe, and one that is dead 
ripe. The apple is hurtful to many persons when it is nearly 
ripe; but we have never seen a person who was injured by it when 
it was fully mellowed and dead ripe. The same is true of all 
fruits. 

Apples should be selected by the flavor that is most pleasing to 
the taste; and that variety should be purchased when hard, and 
ripened under great watchfulness. They can be kept a full year. 
They are the staple fruit of the world. 

Pears are of various kinds, but the best of all the long keeping 
varieties is the duchess. We have seen them kept fresh until July, 
which is about nine months. They have an almost unsurpassed 
quality for this fruit, although there are many of the pears that 
are very delicious. 

Peaches must be a little more than dead ripe, hut not decayed, 
when eaten. They have an imitation ferment that is very health¬ 
ful. They are kept, like apples, for years by canning with very 
little sugar. The duchess pear is not the best for canning, but 
many kinds of pears may be kept for a year or two, though not as 
fresh fruit. All canned fruit of the juicy kinds retain their sol¬ 
vent juices, unless too much sugar is used. There is no excuse for 
not having apples the year round. 

Dried fruit has no value. 

Sweet cherries that are dead ripe are excellent; but when sugar 
is added they set up a ferment in the body that is hurtful. They 
are good only in the cherry season. 

Blackberries, if the pulp can be avoided, are the best of all the 
fruits in their season, as they contain more iron and are a very 
active solvent of the old age deposits in the blood. 

The skin of fruit, the cores, the seeds of the grape, and the 
fiber of all fruit should at all times he kept from the stomach. 


112 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Orange juices are good, even excellent, if the pulp, fiber and skin 
be avoided. One of the worst tricks in cooking is to use the 
peel of the orange or the lemon for flavoring. It is poison. 

Lemon juice is a very valuable aid to the destruction of the 
germs of disease. A few drops of the juice of a good lemon, held 
in the throat, will offset the mucus of catarrh, or the phlegm that 
gathers there in colds. Lemon juice will destroy the germs of 
la grippe if it is taken so as to be inhaled in the throat, lungs and 
nose. We have been at work this past winter on this simple 
remedy, and all reports say that it has been effectual. Of course, 
we do not mean to say that a person can go on defying the laws 
of nature and getting cured by any remedy; but, when once there 
has been a turning back towards the highway of common sense, 
the use of lemon juice will be found the greatest friend in need. 
It is harmless in any quantity, and will permeate the whole system. 
We find it useful in consumption, and in all classes of cases where 
there are catarrh germs. 

Sugar should never be taken with lemon juice. 

The use of sugar with any fruit that is designed for the purpose 
of dissolving the old age deposits in the body is always a hin¬ 
drance to success. Orange and sugar should never be taken in any 
form. Lemonade is not good for the health. When once the 
taste for unsweetened lemonade has been acquired, it is much 
more liked than the old-fashioned kind. 

A Ralstonite will try to have oranges, lemons, apples, and possi¬ 
bly some other fruits of this solvent class, all the year round. 

A Ralstonite should also have some or all the nutrient class of 
fruits all the year round; such as the fig, banana, raisin and prune; 
but not the dried currant. 

What is known as the dried currant is a poison berry from Cor¬ 
inth, originally pronounced corint, then currant. It has three 
bad qualities: first, it has no nutrition whatever; second, it is 
totally indigestible; third, its poison is a distressing irritant to the 
stomach and the intestines. Yet this dried currant is found in 
mince-meat, in fruit cakes and in many puddings and desserts. To 
test its real nature, do not take our word for it, but eat an ordinary 
lunch of raisins, and they will not produce any appreciable harm, 
unless by their mere sweetness, and this will be balanced by the 
food value in them apart from the sugar. On any other day when 
the conditions are the same, attempt to make a lunch of dried cur- 


FRUITS. 


113 


rants. We asked fifty persons to volunteer to this, and they all 
passed the raisin stage in good shape, but the dried currants, even 
in quantity of only one-fifth of the raisins, which was to be the 
first trial, caused fearful distress. Now these poison berries are 
in use everywhere, and people wonder why it is that mince-meat 
hurts them, or why fruit cake is so dangerous. 

Home currants, the red, the black and the white, are excellent 
if made in unfermented juice form, and used to flavor water ices 
with. They are a great builder of vitality in the blood. 

Pineapples are wholesome when their juices have been extracted 
with sugar; the combination seems to be an exception to the rule 
that fruits should not be sweetened. May is the pineapple month, 
and the fruit can be put up in various ways for winter use, as the 
pineapple juice is strengthening to the membranes of the throat 
and lungs, for it is absorbed by the blood and carried into circula¬ 
tion like all assimilated food. 

Watermelons are a poison. 

Cantaloupes or muskmelons are good in limited quantity when 
the flesh is of the green variety and is well ripened. But even they 
must not be eaten if there is weakness of the bowels. 

Huckleberries, blueberries and blackberries, when eaten with 
their seeds are loosening to the bowels; but their juices are as¬ 
tringent and have the opposite effect. 

Citron is totally indigestible and also a severe irritant. Why 
women will put it and dried currants in cake is hard to understand. 

Strawberries with sugar will cause flatulency. In some persons 
they start the hives. It is better to eat them raw and to note their 
effect. They should never be taken with sugar. Lemon juice is 
an excellent aid to their digestion. 

The gooseberry tart is the national dish of England; and the 
devotees of this barbarism pay a severe penalty for their love of the 
two worst ingredients in the category of foods—pie-crust and the 
sweetened gooseberry. This dish is the first regular step toward 
rheumatism and gout in that great country; and it is the land of 
rheumatism and gout. 

The elderberry is of no value as a fruit. 

Plums are of little use, for the reason that they are picked 
green and are generally unfit to use when sold in the market. 

Quinces are not digestible unless cooked to a soft mush, but they 
make excellent jelly. 


114 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Plums are usually very sour; and they, like very sour oranges, or 
other acid fruit, except lemons, cause catarrh of the stomach. The 
shaddocks, like watermelons and other coarsely-watered fruit, carry 
the poisons of the soil into their own cells and are not healthful to 
eat. 

The lime fruit is valuable, like the lemon, for the purpose of 
destroying the germs of catarrh, and especially of grippe. But 
the orange is not useful in these directions, although its juice, if 
sweet, and not combined with sugar, is wholesome as a solvent of 
old age deposits. 

Prunellas are indigestible. 

Olives are excellent if eaten in small quantities. 

Raspberries are easily digested, and have a slight value, but 
should never be eaten with sugar. 

Most fruit may be eaten with cream if it is relished, but there 
is no fruit but the pineapple that ought to be eaten with sugar; and 
the pineapple fiber should not be swallowed. 

Fruit, in order to serve as a laxative, should be eaten on an 
empty stomach; either before breakfast, or just before the evening 
meal. 

Most fruit contains tannin, and this is hurtful besides being in¬ 
digestible ; but the tannin is changed to a digestible form as soon 
as the fruit is dead ripe. But dead ripe fruit will not make the 
best preserves, and so house-keepers prefer to put up the indigesti¬ 
ble forms in order to achieve success. They like the fruit a little 
green; for they say if it is fully ripe it will not make nice jelly, 
etc. Yet it is in this stage between being not quite ripe and dead 
ripeness that fruit changes its destructive tannin into wholesome 
value. For the reasons stated, the canned, preserved and jellied 
fruits are not wholesome, except the quince and the black currant, 
and those varieties of other fruit that are fully ripe when put up. 

We have spoken of cranberries and tomatoes in our discussion of 
vegetables. The cranberry is always hurtful, and no skill can 
make it otherwise. Tomatoes contain oxalic acid which will re¬ 
move iron from clothing, and also from the human blood. 

There are fruits enough of the nutritive kinds, and the solvent 
kinds, to serve you without resorting to the dangers that are found 
in those which the laws of health prohibit. 

Try to have a plan by which you will be supplied with a variety 
of all the wholesome fruits the year round. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


_ 

Higlj Regime 


FOR . PERSONS . IN . WEAK . HEALTH 


t IGH REGIME includes a plan of living that is so benefi¬ 
cial to persons in weak health that curative results are 
sure to follow. Chapter Nine presents an outline of this 
plan, and should be read very carefully at least three 
^ times before the following pages are examined. 
Assuming that you have done this preliminary reading, we will 
proceed to start upon the High Regime. If you do not mind, we 
will send a companion along with you; a respresentative of our own 
who is to prompt you at every point of the way when you hesitate or 
may be likely to go straying from the road of High Regime. The 
reason why we send this messenger is because you will have a more 
eager and determined companion who will make his presence as 
persistently frequent as he possibly can. 

The name of our messenger is Good Judgment. In order to 
refer to him often we shall use the initials, G. J., with your per¬ 
mission. 

The companion who will go with you under all circumstances and 
who will push himself always to the foreground, even pulling you 
by the hand and treading on your toes in his eagerness to control 
your attention, is Self-Inclination. If you do not mind, we will 
simply refer to him as S. I., although he regards such contraction 
as a mark of disrespect. Please think of G. J. as being on your 
right side; and of S. I., as being on your wrong side. With these 
few remarks we will introduce the 


115 







116 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


PHASES OF RALSTON HIGH REGIME. 

1. First Phase. —RISING. 

2. Second Phase .—BREAKFAST. 

3. Third Phase. —NOON MEAL. 

4. Fourth Phase.— EVENING MEAL. 

5. Fifth Phase.— LUNCHES. 

6. Sixth Phase.— THE EARLY NIGHT. 

7. Seventh Phase. —SLEEP. 

8. Eighth Phase. —EXERCISE. 

9. Ninth Phase. —BATHING. 

10. Tenth Phase. —HABITS. 

11. Eleventh Phase. —OCCUPATION. 

In the start please remember that the High Regime is for a 
person in weak health; that it is not for one who is in fair health, 
nor for one who is in robust health, nor for one who is afflicted with 
any specific disease. As you are about to begin the following re¬ 
marks will be made by your two guides: 

G. J.—You ought to read every page of Chapter Nine not less 
than three times; and every page of this whole book once or twice 
with great care. It is even advisable to re-read the whole book at 
the rate of a page or more each day, but never less than a page daily, 
for health is the foundation of all else in life and cannot be studied 
too closely. 

S. I.—Oh, never mind about reading the book. If you want to 
know what is in it, look at the index and then hunt up the subject. 
Life is too short to bother much about the serious things of exis¬ 
tence. Get through it as superficially as you can, for it won’t make 
any difference a hundred years from now whether you have lived or 
not. It’s a lot of trouble to read a serious book. You have lots of 
other reading that is frothy, but much more interesting. Never 
mind if trashy reading does weaken the brain and unfit you for the 
stronger duties of life, there’s a heap of pleasure in it. 


1. First Phase. —RISING. 

High Regime requires that you begin the day aright. We are 
not going to advise you to get up at a very early hour. If you are an 
invalid you will not get up at all, perhaps, and this Regime is not 
for you. Being only in weak health, as stated in Chapter Nine, you 


HIGH REGIME. 


nr 

are around and able to attend to your duties. If you are sedentary 
in your habits, you may lie abed in winter until seven o’clock; and 
in summer until six. This may be so easily managed that you will 
not notice the change in time, for you are to rise almost a minute 
earlier from and after March 21, until you find yourself up at six; 
then, after June 21, you are to remain in bed almost a minute 
later until you find yourself getting up at seven o’clock, and you 
should not lie in bed any later than that hour. 

The old saying that the early riser is the gainer in health is 
always true; but we would expect too much opposition from S. 
I. if we were to suggest the real health-hour for rising; so all we 
will do is to say that those who stay in bed late are not and never 
can be candidates for wholesome bodies. At seven o’clock in the 
summer time, which is the hour that most persons get up, the 
sun has almost half reached his meridien, and the day’s life is far 
advanced. There is no health in remaining in bed in the vital 
hours of the morning. 

On arising, clean the teeth. 

First rinse the mouth, and do not allow any water to enter the 
stomach for a while. After the mouth has been washed out by 
fresh water, take a fine brush and some salt, and give the teeth and 
gums a thorough cleaning. Then rinse the mouth with salt water. 
If you prefer listerine, it may be used instead, in the proportion of 
one-fifth to four-fifths of water; but salt is cheaper and much better. 
In case of canker in the mouth, use the pure listerine and hold it 
against the sores and repeat often, as this treatment will drive them 
away. 

Fine salt, not salt water, will prevent the teeth from decaying, and 
there is no substitute known in the whole art of dentistry. There 
are cases where the teeth have remained white and sound until ex¬ 
treme old age by the use of salt begun in youth. 

The next step is to correct all tendencies to form phlegm, and to 
conquer the germs of grippe that are everywhere present in the air 
and body. This is done by the use of the juice of a good lemon. 
The juice should be taken into the throat and held there as long 
as possible; then the lungs should be emptied, and fresh air got into 
the room, if only by opening the window two seconds; then, while 
holding the lemon juice in the throat, inhale through the mouth 
and exhale through the nose until the juice seems to have mostly 
gone. Then repeat by taking more lemon juice in the throat and 


118 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


breathe as before; doing this until the juice of the whole lemon has 
been used up. 

It is now that you should drink cold water, or ice water, but in 
sips until you have taken from one to two glasses. A pint of cold 
water in the early morning is a great help to the health. The re¬ 
sult of drinking this amount of water is to wash out the stomach 
and the digestive tract below it, where the accumulated poisons of 
the night before have even saturated the whole system, for the morn¬ 
ing breath is foul with them. Here the two companions speak: 

G. J.—A strict observance of this custom of cleansing the mouth, 
the teeth, the throat, lungs and stomach, as well as washing out the 
digestive tract, will prepare the way for the breakfast, and give a 
fine and beautiful complexion and clearness to the eyes. It has 
been tried by thousands of Ralstonites and has transformed them 
into much healthier beings. It takes but a minute or two each 
morning, if you are spry; and, as you get up early enough, you will 
find it a profitable means of passing the first part of the hour before 
breakfast. As soon as the habit is formed the practice will be very 
speedy and you will welcome it. 

I- It is all right, but it is too much trouble. My advice is 
to jump out of bed, give the teeth a quick dash with the brush, wash 
up and hurry to breakfast. Yes, I know the body takes to breakfast 
a lot of foul poisons, but it is too much trouble to drive them away. I 
know the cleansed mouth and lungs and stomach will invite a whole¬ 
some appetite, but it is a lot of trouble to take the pains needed. 
If I do not have much of an appetite I can take some stimulant that 
will force me to eat. Or the cook can season things to make them 
appetizing. Or I can get some of the tonics that are advertised. 

The next step is to give life and activity to the contents of the 
body, which can be done by a few movements of the arms. Take a 
standing position, raise the arms over the head as high as you can, 
then stretch them upward while you are taking a deep, full breath! 
Pull or push high upward with the right arm, then with the left, 
and repeat this until you have stretched the waist muscles and have 
vitalized all the contents of the torso or runk of the body. 

This is a simple exercise, and takes less han half a minute, but 
it is a reproduction of the method of nature to reach the inward 
parts of the body, for she teaches all animals to stretch and yawn for 
this purpose. Walking, or gymnasium practice will not reach the 
inward flesh and muscles of the organs. 


HIGH REGIME. 


119 


The eyes must not be used before there is food in the stomach, or 
the result will be glasses. 

You should be up a full hour from the time when you leap from 
the bed until you are ready for breakfast; and, as much longer as 
you wish; but there should be no food eaten for a whole hour. The 
lemon will protect the empty stomach from all dangers of being 
about with nothing eaten. This hour must not be occupied with any 
mental work; let it all be physical. Hunt up something to do; and 
if there are no physical duties, then walk or exercise or keep gently 
active until the hour of breakfast. 

While we fix the hour of seven in winter and six in summer for 
rising, it is the latest hour permissible; and you can rise as much 
sooner as you wish. Hear what the companions are saying: 

G. J.—The history of disease and health from habits of life shows 
that good health is never obtainable where late rising is practiced. 

S. I.—Oh, what nonsense! The early rising fiend is a nuisance. 
The idea of getting up at seven o’clock when I do not go to bed till 
midnight in winter, and at six o’clock in summer! Why, I never 
Tead such stuff! Six o’clock in summer! I prefer to lie in bed and 
let the sun climb to the zenith. I know of women who lie in bed 
until ten and eleven o’clock every morning, reading novels, and 
their husbands have to get their own breakfasts or else go down 
town and eat at the restaurants, and that is luxury for the wives. 
That is what don’t tempt bachelors to marry, I know, but bachelors 
are cranks, you may be assured. I saw yesterday at half-past ten, 
when a caller rang the door bell, the woman next door and her 
two daughters get up and go downstairs in wrappers, and they were 
yawning as though they enjoyed life. I know they are yellow and 
have a backyard full of empty patent-medicine bottles, but they 
enjoy life, for they take life easy. When night comes they look all 
right with their sallow faces powdered up. I do not believe in 
having health if I must get up for it. 

2. Second Phase. —BREAKFAST. 

You are now ready for breakfast, and you will feel like eating 
a hearty meal, unless you abused your stomach the night before. 

If there is still clogging food from a heavy evening meal of the 
previous night, you will not have an appetite for breakfast no 
matter what regime you follow. 


120 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


The morning meal should be the fuel meal of the day; that is, it 
should supply you with what food you will be needing to carry on 
the operations of life. You are either sedentary or active. If 
sedentary you do not give your muscles the work to do that nature 
requires of them. Your breakfast must be arranged for either a 
sedentary or an active muscular person; and it must suit itself to 
hot weather or to cold weather. If you eat the cold weather food 
in hot weather, or vice versa, you will suffer in some way from the 
mistake. 

Breakfast offers drinks, meats, vegetables and solid foods, with 
some fruits to start with. Let the order be this: 

Having drank about two glasses of water soon after you get up* 
you should now avoid drinking again until an hour after breakfast; 
but if you are thirsty you should drink what water you need before 
you start to eat. Then do not drink again until the hour after the 
meal is over. 

After the water, take the fruit. You can choose from the fol¬ 
lowing kinds: The juice only of a sweet orange, scooped out with 
an orange spoon; or a pear; or a perfectly ripe and mellow apple of 
agreeable flavor; or a peach; or a nectarine; or a fresh apricot; or 
any of the other juicy fruits mentioned in Chapter Seventeen, if 
allowable. 

But do not take the nutritive fruits; that is, omit the banana, the 
fig, the date or the prune for the morning fruit. 

Bread should always be the staple morning solid. It ought to 
be made as stated in Chapter Eleven, then kept fully twenty-four 
hours and served as you prefer, either lightly toasted or else plain, 
or in the form of milk toast or cream toast. The use of butter with 
the bread must be encouraged, as butter is essential to health, for 
it is the easiest method by which to secure animal fats. It is a 
sort of distilled animal production and has none of the objections of 
meat-tissue. Eat all the bread you crave. The fruit and the bread 
and butter, if taken in plenty, will not only sustain life, but will 
keep the body in its best health. 

But potatoes, baked, boiled, or lightly fried without being made- 
crisp, or served in any way that secures their mealy condition, will 
be helpful if all the rules and laws of Chapter Fourteen are ob¬ 
served. No other vegetables are required for breakfast. 

For meat, beefsteak, lamb chops, mutton, broiled chicken, fish,, 
etc., furnish an abundant supply. The rules of Chapter Thirteen 


HIGH REGIME- 


121 


are to be observed. We refer to all the chapters that are helpful to 
the member, but it should be the fact that each reader of this book 
has mastered the principles stated in all the chapters before the 
Regime is undertaken. 

Eggs may be preferred by persons who do not care to eat meat, es¬ 
pecially in the summer time. There are many ways of cooking eggs, 
and when complaint is made that the taste of the egg is disagreeable, 
it is due to ignorance in cooking or in eating it. For instance, let 
an egg be shirred, then stirred while hot, after butter and salt have 
been added, and little squares of toast dropped into it, and no person 
will find the taste objectionable. A single egg will furnish all the 
meat nutrition needed by any sedentary person, and two eggs may 
be taken by a hard worker. The egg is the hot weather meat, and 
should never be cooked hard. 

The following are some of the ways of cooking eggs: 

Boiled, steamed, shirred, scrambled, fricaseed, scalloped, poached, 
poached-with-milk, poached-with-peas, egg-toast shells, egg-tim¬ 
bales, egg-in-nest, bouillon-eggs, egg chowder, creamed-eggs, etc. 
It requires no more time to prepare them one way than another, ex¬ 
cept in acquiring the skill by experience; and this variety will 
furnish sufficient change for a long succession of summer break¬ 
fasts. Eggs must not be taken in any other form under High 
Regime than those we have just presented. 

Ho meats, breads, eggs or other articles of food or drink should 
be used under this Regime except those we have described. 

The meat should be well chewed and no tissue should be swal¬ 
lowed. 

The bread requires careful and slow mastication in order to be 
accptable to a weak stomach. The practice of giving time to the 
eating of starchy foods must be encouraged. 

Ho drink should be taken for breakfast unless there is a craving 
for coffee; and this should be weak and very hot, served with 
cream but not sweetened. It may be weakened by milk that has 
been brought to the boiling point; but in such cases only enough 
coffee should be added to take away the milk taste, and the drink 
should be sipped and never swallowed in mouthfuls. Our purpose 
is to prevent a flood of liquid from entering the btomach and thus 
driving away the gastric juice which is essential for digestion. 

0 Coffee must be cooked by the following process: Take coffee 
that is recently ground, but that is not too dark in color. The more 


122 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


finely it is ground, the better it is. Put it in the biggin, or perco¬ 
lating coffee pot, have some water that has just been brought to a 
boil, and pour it over the coffee; and it is ready to serve. This is 
all that is required. Further cooking draws from it the oils and 
poisons that do so much injury to the system; and re-heated coffee 
is a positive danger to the health. If you are to use coffee at all, use 
it in the way we have stated. Not one cook in a hundred knows 
how to prepare it, for the science of cooking is left to the ignorant 
classes when it really belongs to the intelligent men and women. 

After making the coffee in the manner just stated, serve it 
weak, and as a flavor to hot milk, if you do not have a craving for 
it. If it distresses you as it does nearly all who use it, you should 
omit coffee altogether. It has a tempting and inviting flavor, and 
this leads people to drink it and suffer afterwards, and thus to re¬ 
peat the process until the stomach is collapsed. 

If you have a normal stomach you can digest milk; but if there 
are toxins in your system, milk is not liked and will curd. In case 
you wish to drink it, do with it as you should with the coffee, sip 
it, and eat between the sips, taking one sip, then some other food, 
then another sip, and again food, and so on, and we will promise you 
that you will never find it objectionable or hard to digest. 

Hot milk flavored with chocolate may he sipped in place of the 
coffee, if you prefer. Thus you have several drinks as follows: 

1. Coffee prepared as just stated, with hot water, and served with 
cream: to be sipped, not drank. 

2. Coffe weakened with hot milk: to be sipped, not drank. 

3. Hot milk flavored with chocolate: to he sipped, not drank. 

4. Cold milk: to be sipped, not drank. 

5. Hot milk to be sipped, not drank. 

Tea must not be touched either hot or cold, weak or strong, iced 
or otherwise. It is sure to cause bladder or other organic trouble. 
It contains indigestible and poisonous tannin that gives a false 
comfort to the nerves, and leads to headaches, w T eak heart, low 
spirits and depressed digestion. 

Iced tea is one of the most injurious of all concoctions. 

Not more than one cup or glass of the foregoing drinks should be 
taken, and that should be very slowly sipped to avoid sending a 
flood of fluid to the stomach. No water should be taken at the meal. 

But one kind of meat should be eaten, and the eggs are to take the 
place of all meat if they are used. Too much meat is eaten by 


HIGH REGIME. 


123 


Americans, and the intestines suffer for it. The quantities des¬ 
cribed in Chapter Thirteen are to be observed herein. 

A small bit of meat, or one egg is the limit for sedentary per¬ 
sons. As much bread as is desired may be eaten for breakfast, and 
no limit need be put upon the quantity of potatoes, if they are 
mealy and properly cooked. 

If fish is eaten, omit the meat or the egg, and the same if fowl 
is taken; the purpose being to have but one kind of animal food 
eaten for breakfast. 

Some remarks wdll be made by your companions, and we might as 
well listen to find out what they are saying: 

S. I.—A pretty dry breakfast that. 

G. J.—What is dry ? 

S. I.—Why, you are not allowed to drink water at the breakfast 
table. That is dry. When I am thirsty I pour a whole glass of 
ice cold water into my stomach. My brother died doing the same 
thing, and that shows the courage we are made of. 

G. J.—You are allowed a pint of cold water on getting up in 
the morning, and that is about an hour before breakfast; and then 
you are allowed a glass of cold water just before the breakfast 
begins. That ought to be water enough to quench the thirst. To 
flood the stomach while eating certainly destroys the action of the 
gastric juice and the saliva, both of which must act upon the food. 
Only an inflamed stomach can require water during a meal when it 
has had three full glasses soon before. If your stomach is inflamed, 
then you need this High Regime. 

S. I.—But I cannot do without the hot rolls, the muffins, the pan¬ 
cakes, the biscuit such as mother used to make, the crisp potatoes 
and the coffee that lifts the roof of the mouth off. That is eating, 
and what does it matter if the stomach does break down; are not the 
doctors within call, and do they not have to get a living? What 
right have we to send the doctors to the poorhouse, and make their 
wives and children paupers? 

G. J. —You are poor yourself, and your doctor-friends are rich. 
They have enough wealth to keep them in plenty as long as they 
live, and they have you to thank for it. 

S. I._Say, but those hot rolls are most tempting. Better take 

one. One will not hurt. Just one this once, and then you can wait 
a, year before breaking that horrid old Regime again. One cannot 
do any harm. 


124 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


G. J.—It is the one that does the harm; for, if it is followed by 
safety, it will lead to the belief that another one will not do 
harm. In this way the old habits are established. It takes but 
one hot roll to produce the collapse, and, while the chances are 
that this one may not do it, some particular one will, and I do not 
care to take any chances. I believe in the Regime because it is 
sure to make the health better. 

S. I.—Well, I like the taste of the hot rolls and the pancakes, 
and I am going to take the chances. 

G. J.—How long will there be any taste to them ? Only during 
the brief time they are passing the palate, and then they drop into 
the stomach and the misery begins. Does it pay? 


After breakfast you should engage in some activity, for rest 
after eating is not beneficial. Repeat also the exercises given for 
the period prior to breakfast, the stretching; it will take but half 
a minute. 


3. Third Phase .—THE NOON MEAL. 

It is of no importance what name you give to this meal, whether 
lunch, dinner, or breakfast; the principle is the same as far as 
the Regime is concerned. 

The noon meal must begin with a soup or meat broth of some 
kind. The purpose is to stimulate the stomach and arouse the 
action of the gastric juices. Prior to the meal, if you are thirsty, 
you should drink a glass of cold water; and, at such intervals in 
the forenoon, you should have taken water; so as to come to the 
noon meal with the thirst quenched. 

Consomme, Bouillon, Oyster Bouillon, Vegetable Soup, Julienne 
Soup, Chicken Soup with Vegetables, Gumbo Soup, Celery Soup, 
Beet Soup, Green Pea Soup, Puree of Split Peas, Asparagus Cream 
Soup, Pearl Barley Soup, Rice Soup, Puree of Potato, Vemicelli 
Soup, Macaroni Soup, Fish Chowder, Potato Chowder, Groats 
Broth, Lamb Broth, Mutton Broth, and extracts of beef in various 
forms. All the foregoing are made from the stock of soup which is 
the product of meat and is familiar to every housekeeper. 

No other soups or broths are allowed. Here are two dozen, and 
any cook who wishes to furnish a variety of one kind a day each 




HIGH REGIME- 


125 


week can select the best seven out of the group. The thinner the 
soup, as to thickness of contents, the better it is, for it is not inten¬ 
ded as the main food of the noon meal; although we have seen hun¬ 
gry invalids take so eagerly to certain well prepared soups that they 
filled up on them and were satisfied; eating bread with them. 

The next course might be fish. We omitted the shell fish, as 
oysters and clams are not allowed in this Regime, except the 
flavor of oysters in one of the soups. 

If fish is to be eaten, then all other meat must be omitted, for the 
prevalence of animal food will not bring health. 

If fish is to be omitted, then you will have the following meats to 
select from: 

Boiled Mutton, Broiled Tongue, Roast Beef, Roast Steer, Roast 
Mutton, Roast Lamb, Braised Beef, Ragout of Beef, Ragout of 
Mutton, Scalloped Mutton, Roast Turkey, Braised Turkey, Tur¬ 
key Souffle, Boiled Turkey, Roast Chicken, Broiled Chicken, 
Chicken Fricassee, Boiled Chicken and Smothered Chicken. Very 
little should be eaten, and the suggestions of Chapter Thirteen 
should be observed. 

Some game may be allowed in place of other meat, as follows: 

Wild Turkey, Partridge, Pheasant, Quail, Grouse, Prairie Fowl, 
Woodcock, Snipe, Plover, Rail, Reed Birds, Pigeon, Wild Pigeon 
and Squab. They may be cooked in the various ways suggested for 
the sensible cooking of fowl. 

All Lobsters, Crabs, Clams, Oysters, except when noted. Terrapin, 
and similar food should be avoided, as they are poisonous to hu¬ 
manity; sometimes their action being slow and at other times 
suddenly fatal. 

Sauces should not be rich, and gravies must be simple and close 
to the native juice of the meat, or else not eaten at all. 

Potatoes that may go with the noon meal are: 

Baked, boiled, browned, roasted, hashed, creamed, fried with¬ 
out browning to crisp, mashed and stewed. This list allows a 
change of kind each day, and some to spare. 

The vegetables may be selected from the lists and descriptions 
furnished in Chapter Fourteen. There is so much of value in that 
chapter that its suggestions should be fixed in the memory. 

In the winter time when the green vegetables are scarce, and 
the body needs warmer food, the following may be made up to be 
served as cold weather vegetables. 


126 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Boiled rice, eaten with butter; macaroni; egg rice; boiled maca-, 
roni, eaten with butter; scalloped macaroni; baked macaroni; 
spaghetti, eaten with butter; boiled chestnuts; mashed chestnuts; 
squash, dressed with cream and butter; hulled corn; hominy, eaten 
with butter; and beans or peas, stewed, strained, and served with 
butter. 

Ice-creams are not allowed in the High Regime, owing to the 
fact that the presence of sugar and milk or cream causes a very 
strong fermentation, which is a source of danger to a weak stomach. 
Experiments made in hundreds of cases have established this fact. 

But sherberts, water ices and similar dainties are allowable. 
They should be made of the real fruit in season, and of the home¬ 
made fruit juices in other portions of the year. Do not buy fruit 
juices or drink them at soda fountains, as they are almost invaria¬ 
bly made from chemicals, even where they are sworn to be straight 
fruit products. The United States Government has exposed this 
line of adulteration, as well as many others. Never buy any jams, 
canned goods, preserved fruits, etc., at any store, even where you 
can see them in the bottle, for where they are real they are held 
in chemical poisons that are injurious. Put them up at home. 

In the warm season salads made from olive oil dressings are very 
beneficial, and may be made from fifty or more different foods. 

No puddings and no pies, nothing made of cake, pie-crust, or 
any mixture of sweets and starches, sweets and eggs, sweets and milk 
or cream, or dried currants, citron or anything that is disallowed in 
the previous chapters of this book, must be eaten at any meal. 

For dessert in winter, the nutritious fruits, such as the fig, the 
date, the raisin and the banana, are permitted to follow the noon 
meal. In the summer time, the banana and sherberts, water ices, 
and fruits in their seasons, may be employed as dessert for the 
noon meal; and some of those that began the morning meal, except 
the orange or lemon, may be repeated if desired, or fruits from 
their class may be used, as pears in the morning before breakfast, 
and apples at noon at the end of the dinner; or peaches at one time, 
and cherries, pears, plums, etc., at the other time. 

The foregoing noon meal is ample, full, varied, and full of all 
tempting things for the stomach of any person, well or sick. But 
the companions may have something to say: 

S. I.—I want ice-cream, pie, puddings, patties, croquettes and 
all that kind of thing. 


HIGH REGIME. 


12T 


G. J.—But is there not enough in the list as given to tempt any 
appetite ? 

S. I.—Oh, yes, but what is the use of omitting the lobsters? I 
would walk a mile to get a good broiled lobster. And soft shelled 
crabs, terrapin, etc. Look here, to come to think of it, that is all 
a cranky notion about the crabs and the lobsters. What is the use 
of paying attention to such nonsense ? 

G. J.—Experience from the past and the silent testimony from 
the grave are piled mountain high in proof of the facts as stated 
in High Regime. 

S. I.—But I like the taste of lobsters, clams, crabs, terrapin and 
that kind of food. Why deny it to me ? 

G. J.—Look at the list of allowable foods that are known to he 
wholesome. They are rich enough to feed the kings of the world 
and to please the relish of all. There is so much to select from 
that you can take what you like and leave the rest, and yet have 
too much for your needs. It is a big list. 

S. I.—Yes, I know, the list is a very tempting one, and I find 
many things on it that I relish as much as those that are forbidden; 
but what right has any system of health to dictate what I shall or 
shall not eat? Is it not an interference with my personal rights? 

Any bread, drink, or other article that is included in the morning 
meal, may be had at the noon or evening meal if desired, except 
that the fruits should change as we have indicated, and no drink 
should be used unless sipped as stated under the morning meal. 

The quantity should be less than is really thought necessary to 
support life; for it is a general principle that too much is eaten, 


4. Fourth Phase .—EVENING MEAL. 

The principles of eating now change when we reach the last meal 
of the three. There is a purpose in what is taken into the stomach 
prior to the activities of the day; and there should be a purpose in 
what is eaten after those activities are mainly over. Yet people 
eat at random and pay no heed to the laws of supply and demand. 

Eating must anticipate and not retrospect. The body is an 
engine, a furnace and a machine. It is electrical, it is mechanical, 
it,is automatic, and it is driven by the will of the engineer. Carbon 
is the fuel that is put in the locomotive, and carbon is the fuel 



128 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


that is put in the human furnace. Its power, whether electrical 
or mechanical, is the result of the spreading of the energy in car¬ 
bon, and this is true of any engine or any animal life. After the 
carbon has spent its energy in the locomotive, its ashes are sure 
to clog the furnace unless they are promptly removed, and the same 
is true in the human body. These laws are always enforced in the 
management of a horse; he is fed for the work he is to do, not for 
that he has done; but a horse is looked after scientifically. 

The noon meal should occur at mid-day; that is the natural time 
the world over. The evening meal should occur at six o’clock, never 
before, as it leaves the stomach too long empty, and never later, as it 
takes up the time of the evening. 

Thirst should be quenched in the period between meals. Habits 
are quickly formed in any direction, and the person who leaves the 
drinking of water until the time of eating, is sure to interfere with 
digestion, and to make the desire for water greater during a meal 
than during the interim between meals. If you form new habits, 
you will never miss the water at the table. It is a vicious habit, 
that of drinking while eating. There is no harm in drinking be¬ 
fore food is put in the stomach, as the liquid leaves almost as fast 
as it is put in, if there is not a flood, as when an indiscreet person 
who is overheated drops glass after glass of ice water in the hot 
stomach. This has often caused death. Not long ago a little 
child was allowed to drink a glass of ice water all at once, and it 
fell dead; the autopsy showing that the stomach had suffered from 
the shock which brought on death. 

The purpose of supper is to feed the nerves, the flesh, the organic 
structures and the general body in an even and all-round supply of 
nutrition. For these reasons there should be the lighter foods eaten, 
while the heavier kinds are to wait until the next morning or noon. 

Bread, as stated, for breakfast, may be taken with butter or in 
the form of toasts, and to such extent as it may be desired; two 
average slices being sufficient. Bread and butter make the best 
combination, and there is too little of it eaten in this country. 
Plain bread, properly made and kept, will soon be relished very 
much. We have letters from many persons who did not at first 
like the idea of eating so much bread and so little of other things; 
but now the verdict is that the liking has become very strong. “ I 
prefer bread and butter to cake or pie,” is a typical letter from a 
person who did not at first think it possible to give up pastry. 


high regime. 


129 


Potatoes, like bread, should appear at all three of the meals if 
they are not too new. Very new potatoes are undeveloped starch 
and are no more digestible than a rock, or than bananas that have 
not reached their diastase state by becoming dead ripe. There are 
many ways of cooking the potatoes, as may be seen by reference to 
the subject earlier in this chapter. 

Rice should always be eaten at the evening meal in some form, 
unless it has been taken at noon, which will be rare. Rice is a light, 
easily digested and curative food. It may be taken with salt and 
a little milk, the children being allowed to increase the quantity of 
milk to any extent they please. But rice and sugar must be avoided. 
The taste for rice and milk will grow rapidly, and sugar will then 
be regarded as too sickening, as it would be to-day if the stomach 
were not out of order. 

During the period of the year when it is not possible to get 
potatoes that are old enough to be cooked mealy, rice and butter at 
noon, rice and milk at breakfast and the same at supper, may be 
taken in place of the potatoes and as a substitute. Both are 
starchy foods, and both are easy to digest. 

The difficulty, if any, with rice, comes from the gluey mass which 
it is apt to form in the stomach, but butter keeps the cells from ad¬ 
hering, and helps the digestibility. Milk does the same. The 
habit of eating rice with some other food, as a little of bread, and a 
little of rice, and so on alternating, will help the digestion. Under 
such circumstances it is the best of foods as far as digestibility is 
concerned. Steaming the rice helps to swell the cells. 

Raisins and rice, on which butter or milk is served, make a very 
nice evening dish. Cook the raisins as well as the rice. 

Rice with the juice of beefsteak, and well salted, is a very valua¬ 
ble food for young and growing children, and may be given soon 
after they are weaned, and kept almost daily as an article of diet 
for almost a lifetime. It is used in cases of diarrhoea, and in 
convalesence from typhoid, and other fevers. 

Rice and prunes, rice and pears, rice and peaches, rice and 
bananas, and many other forms of rice, will be found both appe¬ 
tizing and beneficial. These are all typical evening dishes, but may 
be taken on hot days at any meal. 

The more rice you eat at the evening meal, the better will you 
sleep at night. 

Whole tapioca, not the pearl, may enter into supper desserts; as 


130 THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

also may sago and occasionally custards and custard puddings; but 
no pie-crust, and no cake, nor any product in which baking-powder 
is used. 

Cornstarch, farina, sea moss, blanc manges and baked apples 
with cream are excellent articles with which to tempt the appetite 
at the evening meal. 

Potatoes may be omitted at this third meal if there is no appe¬ 
tite for them. 

From all the foods named as suited for the evening meal, you 
may select such as you wish, and omit the others. They all have 
the advantage of being suitable to the stomach and even curative, 
whether eaten alone or with others. You cannot say this of one 
article in a dozen that you see on the table at home, in the res¬ 
taurant, in the boarding house, or at the hotel. The test is easy: 
Take any single article of food and eat only that at a meal; if it does 
not hurt you, then put it on the list; then take another single 
article for the next meal, and if it does not hurt you, put that on 
the list. By changing each meal, and eating but one kind of food 
at such meal, you will soon find out what foods agree with you, and 
what are hurtful; but you will be surprised to find so many that 
are totally unfit for your use; yet they are concealed in the midst of 
other foods in the usual diet of to-day, and the theory is that they 
do not hurt much, and, therefore, they may be eaten with impunity. 
Then there is the specious and misleading argument that too much 
of any good thing is hurtful. This has led many thousands to 
sick beds. Foods, like the growth of the garden, are good and 
bad; some are healthful and some are weeds; but the trouble with 
humanity of late years is that the weeds have been slowly choking 
out the good foods from the table. 


5. Fifth Phase. —LUNCHES. 

Too long a wait between meals is not good for the health. The 
dinner hour should be the same seven days in the week, and noon is 
the natural time for eating. It is close enough to the morning 
eating. The habit of having the dinner at a certain hour six 
days, and then dropping it to a later hour on Sundays, deranges 
the system and puts the nerves out of order. Many persons 
find themselves almost collapsed, and the fact that the nerves. 



HIGH REGIME. 


131 


that stimulate the stomach on week days are compelled to wait 
for one or two hours longer, makes them restless and dull head¬ 
aches follow. Then the long delay withdraws from the digestive 
system its eagerness to act at the regular time. Any graded change, 
as in the hour of breakfast, is but the variation of a minute, and it 
occurs each day. It is also in harmony with the earlier rising of the 
sun; whereas the noon hour is the same every day in the year. 

It would be an excellent plan to never change the noon meal 
from mid-day; and the evening meal from six o’clock in the after¬ 
noon; but the breakfast would be better relished if it was made to 
conform with the time of rising, being just one hour later than the 
moment when a person gets out of bed, and the time for doing this 
has been stated fully in the First Phase of this Regime. 

There should be no lunch prior to breakfast, as the pint of cold 
water, the lemon juice and other attention, will suffice to keep the 
system in its best condition. 

If there is a decided hunger between the breakfast and the dinner, 
a light lunch of toasted bread well buttered is all that should be 
taken. Water can be drank freely before eating, but not after 
eating has begun, nor for some little time after it is through. 
This rule applies to all meals and lunches. 

The mid-afternoon lunch is not recommended unless the in¬ 
dividual is very hungry and is an anaemic, a consumptive, or a 
convalescent from some wasting disease. Hot broth and toasted 
bread are the best at this time. 

All persons who have the least feeling of weakness just before 
retiring should have a light lunch; but it should be only just 
enough to give the stomach activity, and thus call off the keen 
urging of the nerves in the brain; for at nine o’clock or later the 
nerves get at work in the brain and are very troublesome if not 
called off, and the action of digestion will take them to the stomach 
and so relieve the brain. In all ordinary cases of nervous insomnia, 
it will also bring on sweet and refreshing sleep. We recommend 
any of the rice foods that are included in the evening meal, as they 
invite easy digestion and do not set the muscles flying and twitching 
as do the heavier foods. A rice lunch is much enjoyed at the late 
hour of the evening, and some persons who do not care for it at other 
times are eager for it now. Thus relish quickly is educated. We 
recall the case of a family of seven who had eaten cheese and pound 
cake, or some food just as barbarous, for many nights just before 


132 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


retiring and who had all brought on severe attacks of gastritis, two 
of them barely escaping fatal results; we had recommended the 
rice dishes, but they scorned them with ridicule; but, after normal 
conditions were restored in a year they became again night hungry 
and were driven, as a matter of safey, to adopt our ideas, and the 
father now writes: “ It is surprising that all seven of us have a 

strong relish for the rice dishes if they are well cooked, and we have 
not the slightest relish for the old food. The change is a fixed one, 
and is surprising to all of us.” This is but a proof of the fact that 
a normal stomach prefers the normal foods, and an abnormal 
stomach prefers the hurtful diet. 


6. Sixth Phase .—THE EARLY NIGHT. 

What to do between the end of the supper or evening meal and 
the time for retiring is a problem with most persons. 

The night is made for sleep, and the early night should suit 
itself to the requirements of sound and refreshing slumber. 

A person who is nervous or a light sleeper must not engage in 
any exciting reading, talking or activities, such as games that 
hold the interest too closely or other exacting occupation. Study 
is not best for a person of weak health, unless it can be completely 
got out of the mind before the hour for retiring. It is a general 
rule that the mind ought to have rest for one full hour prior to 
bedtime; and it is another rule that the muscles ought to be gently 
exercised during some of that period. 

Ralstonism has never yet failed to cure any case of insomnia by 
its special treatment, and without resorting to medicines of any 
kind. But, as a preliminary to such treatment, it is necessary to 
observe some of the dictates of plain common sense. As an ex¬ 
ample of what we mean, in one case a merchant was unable to sleep 
at night, and we found that his last hour before retiring was de¬ 
voted to work upon his books and accounts. He did not have sense 
enough to know that such a habit would ruin any brain in time, yet 
he was sensible enough to make money in business. In another 
case a woman spent her evenings reading the most exciting novels, 
and afer getting in bed she always told the plot and progress of 
events to her daughter; until, at length, both of them were insom- 



HIGH REGIME- 


133 


niasts. Where was their sense? In still another case a family of 
nervous adults had symptoms of insanity; and it was found that 
they played cards until after eleven o’clock every night, and were 
completely wrapped up in the sport, as they called it. After retiring 
they even talked over the luck and marvels of the games until at 
last they lost all power to sleep. 

There is no case of insomnia where some such history has not 
preceded it. Nervousness and irritability are symptoms of the 
coming breakdown of the brain if care is not taken to nurse it back 
into a normal condition. 

To maintain this normal balance, it is better to court the dark¬ 
ness by little walks, and by sitting out upon porches in warm 
weather, or in cold weather if you can be clad heavily, or else 
engage in light work with the muscles, or take part in games that 
require you to be on the feet at least half the time; and in this way 
the blood will be drawn from the brain and sleep will come more 
readily. 

The Regime Bath must be taken just before going to bed, and 
will be described under the Ninth Phase. 


7. Seventh Phase. —SLEEP. 

A person in robust health may go to bed later than one in weak 
health. The latter needs full eight hours’ sleep, and possibly more. 
If you rise at seven o’clock in winter, which is the latest hour al¬ 
lowed under Regime, you could remain up until nearly eleven 
o’clock the night before. It is not allowable, however, to stay up too 
late and then make up for the lost sleep by remaining in bed later 
the next morning. It is just this bad habit that we wish to break 
up. If you are so situated that you can get a noon or early after¬ 
noon sleep, called a siesta, you may then sit up as late as you please 
at night once in a while, and take the day sleep to make good the 
loss. But this cannot be done frequently, for ill health is sure 
to follow. 

Until you are out of the woods, as the saying is, you should not 
take chances with fate; but should be in bed not later than ten 
o’clock every night, let all social and pleasure-seeking engagements 
wait until you have secured the better grade of health. 



134 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


In the summer months when you rise somewhat earlier than 
seven, you should either go to bed that much earlier the night pre¬ 
vious, or else get a day sleep, the latter being better. We believe in 
having long waking hours on summer evenings, and a brief siesta in 
the early afternoon to make good the quantity of sleep needed every 
twenty-four hours. Two periods of sleep are much more than 
equal to the same amount of time put in one. 

The habit of sleeping late mornings makes the brain dull and 
stupid. No clear-headed person sleeps late in the morning. The 
history of the world shows plainly that the early risers have had the 
best mental powers, and also the keener minds for winning in any 
and every department of life. Energy and late rising are not 
companions. 

The sleeping room ought to be well aired during the day; but 
this does not mean that a person is to chill a whole house in winter 
by an enthusiastic opening of the bedroom windows and doors. A 
single wundow left open a few inches on a cold day will change the 
air. It is better to go into a cold room to sleep, if you go from a 
warm one, but we do not advocate a chilly and damp room. 

If possible have your sleeping room on the east or the south 
side of the house; never on the north and never on the west, if 
possible to avoid those locations. But the west is preferable to the 
north. It is not possible to get health and nervous vitality, which 
is essential to normal conditions, by sleeping in a room that faces 
the north in the winter time. In the summer time, the north room 
is the hottest both morning and evening, otherwise it will suffice for 
that much of the year. Sun must shine in the sleeping room 
during the winter day, or when there is sun; just as the plant must 
have sunny conditions. If you try to raise flowers in your sleep¬ 
ing room, they will tell you the location that is healthful; for what 
the latter is to plants by day it will be to humanity by night; and 
there are no flowers that will thrive in a north room in winter, 
except the few freaks, and they are rare. 

The east sleeping room is the best, for the morning sun brings 
it the earliest vitality of the day; and east rooms are what plants 
most love in all seasons of the year. A plant in a greenhouse must 
have fresh water daily; it must have fresh air daily; it must have 
food daily, of the kinds that support its life; and it must have all 
the sunlght that nature offers daily, or at least in the major part 
of the day. Thus the plant and the human body are equally the 


HIGH REGIME. 


135 


subjects of the elements. A man tried to manage a greenhouse 
without getting ideas from gardeners. He got the food all right; 
he got the sun-exposure all right; and he watered the plants all 
right; thus feeding them on solids and liquids and sunshine; and he 
wondered why they died. He was too proud to call in an ignorant 
fellow to explain the trouble, so he wandered around to a greenhouse 
and observed what was going on there. He found to his surprise 
that it was necessary, even on the coldest days in winter, to give 
the plants fresh air from out of doors. Then he had not further 
trouble. He learned that what the human body needs, the plants 
need—foods, solid and liquids, sunshine and fresh air. It taught 
him a great lesson. 

The habit of leaving the sleeping room window open at night 
must be studied with reference to each individual. Some persons 
catch cold by the exposure. In their case it is better to have the 
rooms aired by day and early night, and then kept closed or nearly 
so all night long. Some persons find it convenient to open the 
door to an adjoining room and thus get air frm there, the latter 
having been well aired prior to the hour of retiring. Other per¬ 
sons open a window a mere trifle, and this can be done in an ad¬ 
joining room if the door is left open between, and thus prevent too 
strong a current on the sleeper. Skill and ingenuity will prevent 
the necessity of having a direct draft blow on a person, in case the 
latter is sensitive to such exposure. If any attempt is made to 
harden the vitality to train it for enduring such exposure, please 
remember that the hardening process has sent many a victim to an 
early grave. 

We advocate fresh air, but not dangerous conditions. 

The contents of the room should be known in advance of getting 
to bed. The practice of leaving a vessel uncovered under the bed 
or in the washstand, is most vicious and filthy; yet there are more 
persons who inhale every night the vapors of such poisons than are 
sensible enough to keep them out of the room, or else covered 
tightly and put away somewhere out of the circulation of the room. 
Doctors say over and over again that the prevalence of this habit 
is most surprising; and it is found as much in the upper classes as 
in the middle and lower. The blood, the breath, the stomach and 
all the organs are affected by the vapors which are thus inhaled. 

In sleep the body naturally rests on its face, the stomach being 
down; but the superficial habits have established the practice of 


136 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


sleeping on the back or on the side. There is no fault to find with 
sleeping on the right side; but if one sleeps on the left side it is 
better to roll partly over so as to be to some degree face down. 
Many persons who have slept on their backs and have found it 
injurious to the nervous system and to the spine, have learned to 
adopt the natural method of lying prone, of face entirely down, and 
have reported that they find it much more healthful, and that it 
invites refreshing slumber to rest in this position. 


8. Eighth Phase .—EXERCISE 

Many mistaken ideas in regard to the necessity of exercise are 
prevalent A summing up of the latest and most scientific knowl¬ 
edge on the subject will be given here. We speak with authority 
because our various systems of physical culture are in practice to¬ 
day the world over, and are fast supplanting those that have hither¬ 
to been in vogue. In this country alone there are over one thousand 
ladies and gentlemen engaged in teaching Ralston Physical Cul¬ 
ture, and our many books on the subject may be regarded as the 
best and latest information. 

1. A sedentary person needs muscular activity; but it must have 
relation to age, sex and occupation. 

2. A person who is not sedentary, but who is engaged in one line 
of muscular activity, must have other forms of exercise in order to 
balance a fixed use of the muscles. For instance, one man is on 
his feet much of the time, walking about in the discharge of his 
duties, as an officer, a watchman or a floor walker, etc., and he has 
very little opportunity to use his arms and upper body; he needs a 
line of exercise that would be called special in his case. In another 
instance a man sits all day, but is very active with his arms; he needs 
body and leg activity. Another man uses his waist and arms and 
upper half of the body; he needs leg action, and walking would be a 
sufficient balance. Women sit and sew at a machine; they become 
fiat-chested after a while, if there is not balance by exercise in the 
upper half of the body. Another woman employs her arms or 
hands, but does not stand much of the time; she needs exercise 
that will call the blood and its nutrition to the less used parts of 
the body. 



HIGH REGIME. 


137 


3. When a non-sedentary person does not get a balanced or all¬ 
round activity of the body, the blood and nutrition run to abnor¬ 
mal development, while some organ or other part of the body is 
sure to suffer. 

4. Play is not good exercise if it employs a few sets of muscles in 
severe action and neglects other sets. 

5. Work of a different kind from that usually engaged in is the 
equal of play if it is enjoyed, otherwise it is not so beneficial as the 
lighter activity. Enjoyment is the key to true muscular exercise, 
whether in work or in play. 

6. As an example of the value of enjoyment we will cite the case 
of a man of sedentary habits who had lost his health. His doctor 
knew that nothing would save him if he could not be induced to 
take up some kind of physical activity for a few hours daily; so he 
was advised to get a favorite horse and to let no one attend to the 
work of caring for the animal but himself. The man bought the 
horse, but did not like the odor of the barn or the unclean part of the 
work, so he hired a man to do these things, and the scheme of the 
doctor fell through. But he did not give up, and advised the man 
to get a small piece of land, and set out a little garden, with a few 
vines, shrubs, trees, etc. The idea took, and the man bought one 
acre. On this he had planted three pear trees, three peach trees, 
three apple trees, ten grapevines, a few blackberry bushes, some 
currants, some gooseberries, some raspberries, a bed of strawber¬ 
ries, a small vegetable garden and several flower beds. He ar¬ 
ranged them after ideas he got from books and from gardeners. He 
had one man employed to attend to the land for him, but there is 
not enough work on one acre of ground laid out in this way to keep 
one man busy all the time; so the man had other duties, and the 
owner made it a rule to devote to it just as much of his own time, or 
just as little, as he pleased, and to call in the man to do the rest. He 
soon found the work fascinating and even inspiring; for, properly 
attended to, there is nothing in this world that can equal the pleas¬ 
ure that springs from the management of the wonderful forces of 
nature, as they urge on the growth of the many useful and beauti¬ 
ful things that God has given to man. There is a miracle in every 
leaf; a sermon in every hanging fruit; love in each flower; and 
philosophy in the activities of the enemies that march upon you 
from every hand and go to their death in every act of duty you 
perform. The man found his whole heart wrapped up in the new 


138 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


activities which he found in this pleasing employment; his health 
began to mend; and, from a condition that seemed almost hope¬ 
less, he has become robust and vigorous, yet has not averaged more 
than an hour a day in his acre of land. In his ill health he was 
inclined to look upon life as a mere piece of machinery, which, 
when it broke down, came to an end; but his garden gave him an 
insight into a nobler world. We cite this as one case out of many 
thousands where the proper exercise has come from work that is 
enjoyable. 

7. Persons who have passed forty-five years of age and who are 
sedentary, should not take up physical activities suddenly, and 
never in great earnestness, for the body is made for easy gradations 
of change and not for sudden revolutions from one plan to another. 
Old people are apt to become enthusiastic and wish to show the 
younger folks that they are still alert. This has led to the break¬ 
ing down of the heart and untimely death. If you have not been 
accustomed to exercise or work, in recent years, do not engage sud¬ 
denly in any practice or other activity, no matter who advises you 
to do so; and this rule ought to apply to young as well as to old 
people. 

8. The breaking in process so much employed by teachers of 
physical culture is wrong in principle and in result; for it tears 
down tissue that will not be rebuilt. Let every beginning be so 
gentle that lameness does not ensue except in slight degree. The 
best teachers of Ralston Physical Culture adopt this plan: they do 
not allow their pupils to have much exercise for a week or two, but 
keep them daily on the easy movements that are mere glides and 
curves, and are free from straight lines and straining action. 
These easy beginnings should be indulged in very often at home 
each day by the beginners until the muscles get used to their new 
activities, for a perfect system of physical training gives the 
muscles something to do that they have never before had. 

9. Then as the class begins to show readiness for the stronger 
movements, divide it into three parts; the ladies in one, the gentle¬ 
men in another, and the older persons in another. The same de¬ 
gree of action cannot apply to these three divisions alike. Be 
sure that the older persons do not exert themselves severely, no 
matter how much they feel like it. A skillful teacher can take 
a class through the many movements and so divide the work that 
all may be apparently doing the same thing yet in different ways. 


HIGH REGIME. 


139 


10. We refer to class practice, and this is done for the reason 
that Ralstonites learn to teach themselves and their neighbors or 
friends; and many pleasant sessions are held throughout the year, 
omitting the hot months of July and August; no charge being made 
when a Ralstonite organizes classes for the purpose. From these 
amateur classes many pupils go to the professional teachers in the 
course of time, in case they wish to master the whole plan of Ral¬ 
ston Physical Culture. 

11. But for health purposes only, it is not necessary to take up 
any elaborate system of practice. We do not say this to discourage 
the people from patronizing the teachers who use our books on 
Physical Culture and who teach our system as a means of earning 
a living. We are pleased at the increasing demand for our great 
books, but we propose to show our members the way to protect 
health in this one book alone, and not make it necessary for you to 
purchase other works. For this reason we present the following 
method which is not taken from any of the elaborate systems of 
practice; it is found only here in this one book: 

EXERCISE FOR HEALTH ONLY. 

A. Always get a brief period of rest just before each meal. 

B. Always practice immediately after eating; no other time is 
as good. Exercise on an empty stomach is not the best. Rest is 
better. 

C. Keep the inner tissue of the body charged with flowing blood 
by the arm-lifting movements which we described in the First 
Phase of this Regime. This is done by lifting each arm high over 
the head and stretching and pulling on the inner muscles of the 
body. These muscles surround the stomach, the heart, the lungs, 
the liver and all the parts of the body that are engaged in the vital 
processes, and there is no other exercise that will reach them. 
Please remember that. 

D. The object of true health-exercise is to reach the inner tissue 
of the body and not to develop the muscles of the outward or gen¬ 
eral body. The inner tissues are generally dull and sluggish be¬ 
cause they are not affected by work or play or any of the gymnasium 
exercises. 

, E. These inner tissues will not get any benefit from walking, and 
but little from deep breathing. Nature makes a person yawn and 


140 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


stretch; but only when the inner tissues are in a morbid state of 
sluggishness. Do not wait till then, and do not depend on yawn¬ 
ing. The stretching can be done better by art; and the natural 
movements of art are those we have described, for they are taken 
from the lessons taught by nature. While the arms are raised high 
over the head, try to stretch and raise them higher, allowing the 
body to be pulled upon by the raising of the arms. Inhale while 
doing this, and move each arm in turn, then both together, and 
keep on inhaling at times during the practice. This may be done 
sitting, but standing is better. 

F. The result of this simple movement is to throw the blood in 
streams all through the organs and connecting tissue of the inner 
body. There is where nutrition and new health are first sought by 
nature, and no system of physical culture can do what this easy 
exercise will accomplish. Persist in it every day following each 
meal. We have known of the liver (which has a habit in all in¬ 
dividuals of stopping its work as soon as the stomach is the least bit 
over full) starting activities from this exercise alone when no 
other kind of action would affect it. We have known of thousands 
of cases where the stomach has held up its food because of the rich¬ 
ness or unfitness of the contents, and refused to go on with diges¬ 
tion until this inner-tissue-stretching exercise sent the blood and 
juices around it and gave new life to what promised to be a bad 
case of souring and throwing. In fact, this simple movement will 
help all the organs of the body as no other action can. 

G. This should be accompanied by deeper breathing than usual; 
and every breath should be preceded by a complete exhalation from 
the lungs. 

H. The habit of being on the feet at frequent intervals ought to 
be cultivated; but not to the extent of tiring a person. It is not 
difficult to stand for a moment or so every quarter of an hour. 
Sitting crowds the blood into the lower intestinal regions, and 
holds in check the process of elimination of poisons; and these 
soon make their presence felt in the stomach and throughout the 
whole circulation. It has been proved in the case of women that 
the sitting habit leads to the improper development of her func¬ 
tions ; so that, in place of a clear and normal action in every period, 
she is made to endure cramps and pains, and half-poisons that 
are not intended by nature except as penalties. The dangers of 
child-birth are largely chargeable to the habit of constant sitting. 


HIGH REGIME. 


141 


I. In men as well as in women the crowding of the intestinal work 
into a cramped and unhealthful corner which always attends the 
sitting posture, leads to the forcing back into the whole body of 
the many forms of excretions that should not be interfered with in 
their passage through the lower bowels; but they do not proceed 
there freely, and hence are forced back into the circulation, and the 
lungs, the heart, the stomach and all the organic life of the body 
suffers much more than words can describe. 

J. Sitting, like reclining, is not intended as a part of the life- 
activities of a human being, but only as a means of rest; and peo¬ 
ple will be much healthier if they will learn to stand more. But 
we cannot advise one who is in weak health to stand much. All we 
seek is to have you stand at frequent intervals all through the wak¬ 
ing hours; suiting yourself to the place where you are. If in 
church you are bound by the custom prevailing; if in school you 
should follow the rules there, although it is a good teacher who can 
have the scholars on their feet a dozen times every hour. But at 
home and in your employment you can rise quite often and get 
Telief from the constant sitting posture which you will soon learn 
to dislike if you follow nature’s plans. It is all a question of gen¬ 
eralship on your part, pitted against the fourth cardinal enemy of 
health. 

K. If you will notice a very healthful person you will find that 
the body is carried firmly all the time, the head erect and easily 
poised on the shoulders, the chest up and not collapsed, and the 
tread is vital, not draggy. As these conditions come out of the 
best of health, they naturally attend it. So, by reversing the law 
of nature, we find that she brings results from causes, or causes 
from results. The vital and firm carriage of the body, although 
easy and graceful, is the result of good conditions in the body. The 
reverse of this law brings us to the fact that the practice of carrying 
the body firmly but easily, the head erect, the chest full and the 
legs with spirited energy, invites a vital development within the 
body as a result of such splendid habits. This, then, is a form of 
exercise. 

L. We need give no more. It would serve only to tire our 
members to ask them to indulge daily in a complete system of 
practice. Here we introduce only those brief movements that all 
persons can easily perform, such as the raised arms which by 
pulling upwards stretch the inner tissues of the body; and the 


142 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


habit of standing on the feet at brief intervals during the waking 
hours; and, finally, the habit of carrying the body in its best vi¬ 
tality. 

Who can fail to find time -for these ? 

The first is known as the tissue-flushing, because it is the only 
exercise ever known that will send new blood in and through and 
around the tissues and organs that supply life. It needs a minute 
after each meal, and a minute in the morning and again before 
retiring; making only five minutes a day. You will not forget 
that. 

The habit of being on the feet takes no time, as it does not inter¬ 
fere with any duties. The habit of carrying the body aright will 
take no time, for it is the same in matter of minutes and hours 
whether you are in a right or a. wrong position. 

This simple system has worked many wonderful results in the 
lives of men, women and children who have been taught them. 
One lady, a school teacher, says that she has abandoned all the other 
exercises that are so elaborately given in some of the old methods of 
exercise, and has come down to the simplicity of the regime 
practice; and the difference she describes as follows: “ You have 
seen a load of hay worth fifteen dollars, and a diamond worth five 
hundred dollars. The hay is more bulky. The diamond you can 
carry in your pocket. In size and expanse the hay appeals to the 
mind as the greater; but in value and beauty the diamond is its 
superior many times over. So it is with the bulky systems of 
physical training compared with the effective and beautiful Regime 
of Ralstonism.” 


9. Ninth Phase.— BATHING. 

The pores of the lower half of the body are like great sewers that 
free a city from its poisons. These lower pores are given to the 
task of excretions, while the pores of the chest and upper back are 
given to the work of absorption. 

A cold is due to the toxins that are stored in the body, and they 
come from the accumulation of deat or dead food material that is 
no longer useful to the nutrition of the blood. Without the pres¬ 
ence of the deat and the toxins you cannot catch cold; and when 
you do catch it the first thing your physician attempts is to free 



HIGH REGIME.. 


i4a 


the bowels, free the stomach, free the blood and set up a rapid 
circulation at the feet. The old idea that circulation should be 
set up at the upper half of the body in order to release the accumu¬ 
lated poisons was exploded a few years ago, and the practice to-day 
is to close up the chest entirely while keeping the full circulation 
of the pores as free as possible in the lower half of the body. 

The sweating of the feet and legs is still as good practice to-day 
as it has been for the past five thousand years. The pores there are 
sewers that carry off the poisons that make colds, pneumonia 
and kindred diseases. 

But the chest must now be considered an absorbing region or 
zone. If you will look into the practice of any of the greatest 
physicians of Europe or America, and we do not care where you 
hunt them up, it is all the same, you will find that they take a 
little coat made of cotton batting, improvised for the occasion, 
which they have sewed inside of another improvised coat made of 
oiled silk, like a jacket, and this they place on the upper body of 
the patient, covering the back, the sides and the front chest com¬ 
pletely, and they give strict orders never to take it off, but let it 
fall off from wear. We have known of this being done thousands 
of times, and many a life has been saved by it when medicine has 
utterly been of no avail. The cotton is about a half inch thick, 
and is next to the skin, and it is quilted on to the oiled silk. The 
extra warmth of this jacket serves as a furnace of vitality for 
the affected lungs. 

This kind of a jacket in northern climes may be replaced several 
times during a severe winter, and weak lungs made strong thereby. 

But the strange part of it is that, if the whole body were to be 
clothed likewise, the person would die of pore suffocation. The 
practice of doctors is to place the cotton-lined jacket of oiled silk 
around the part of the body that surrounds the lungs, and these 
extend from the high chest to the stomach in front, and down the 
sides as far as the ribs go. The bathing of this zone must be done 
with some regard for the laws of nature and of health, or sickness 
will be sure to follow. 

Another fact that seems surprising is this: If a soiled garment 
is put on the chest after it has been taken off for a period, as over 
night, the lungs will show symptoms of having a cold; but if the 
same garment is not taken off the evidence of a cold will not be 
seen until the garment has collected the excretions of several days. 


114 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


This is due to the fact that relations are set up between the gar¬ 
ment and the chest whereby the latter becomes accustomed to the 
condition of the garmept. The danger of cold is greater in pro¬ 
portion as the chest-pores are opened by rubbing or bathing. So 
important is this fact that it is always necessary to put on a clean 
garment next to the skin if the chest has been bathed or the pores 
opened by rubbing. 

The natural law is that the chest is absorptive, and when the 
pores are open care should be taken to give them a cleanly garment 
next to them. Clean silk is the best. Next in healthfulness is 
clean linen. Next is clean wool. 

The time will come when the zone of the torso that surrounds 
the lungs will be specially clothed with reference to the require¬ 
ments of the latter as agents of purifying the blood of the whole 
body which is made to pass through them. 

The lung zone of pores can be safely regarded as intended for the 
purpose of absorption, and the use of olive oil baths, or of the in¬ 
vigorating bath to be mentioned later on in this phase, should 
have their application largely to the torso. 

The pores of the lower half of the body are sewers, and their 
action begins just below the stomach or at the loins, and becomes 
more and more important as the feet are reached. 

High Regime requires that the feet shall be bathed every night 
just before retiring, first in very hot water with plenty of soap¬ 
suds in which some witch hazel has been mixed; then rinsed off in 
fresh warm water; and finally chilled by a sudden dash of cold 
water; after which a hot, dry towel is needed without any delay. 
This will bring the circulation to the feet. 

The magnetic currents of the body, or what is really animal 
electricity, may be traced very easily by the feeling; and these are 
brought to the feet by having two pails of water after the rinsing; 
in one pail have very cold water and in the other pail have water 
as hot as you can endure. Hold one foot in one pail while the other 
foot is held in the other pail; then reverse. This is merely a 
practice in establishing the healthful electrical currents of the 
body. But it may be omitted if you do not have the time. The 
other parts of the bath must not be slighted. Nor must any night 
pass in the whole year in which you fail to take the Regime bath. 

The feet and legs should be bathed as far up as you can con¬ 
veniently reach with the accommodations you have. It is not 


HIGH REGIME. 


145 


necessary to get in a bathtub. A large bowl or an ordinary pail 
will do. 

When you wish to bathe for cleanliness, that is another question, 
and you can determine that for yourself; in which case the whole 
body should be bathed, always putting clean clothing next to the 
chest even if you should not be able to afford a change for the whole 
body, as where a person of limited means takes a daily full body 
bath. But the laws of health require that cleanliness be observed 
as much as possible. A little of the management of good general¬ 
ship will settle all such questions for you. 

We much perfer to advise that the chest shall not get much 
water in cool weather, as in spring and in fall, and none at all in 
the winter. But a hot towel can be used to wipe the perspiration 
from the chest, or the zone of the lungs. It is true that the action 
of the pores is double, like that of the lungs; and while these 
absorb, they give out at the same time in exchange, but not in the 
sense and to the extent of the feet and legs. 

Feet-washing as a daily practice is thousands of years old. Like 
almost all of the great natural laws of health, it came into use as 
a wholesome custom; then was grafted upon a religious system 
and is still in vogue all over the world, but among a very limited 
number of people in this country. We do not teach it as a religious 
rite, but because of its essential value as a means of preserving the 
health. The fact that it was honored by the Saviour should endear 
it to the hearts of all Christians. 

If you do not bathe your feet daily, there will come a time when 
your doctor will order you to let out the pent-up poisons of the 
body by soaking the feet. We have letters from hundreds of the 
leading physicians of America who say that there is no better way 
to-day of assisting in the cleansing of the body that is afflicted with a 
severe cold or with pneumonia than the hot foot bath or the old- 
fashioned mustard bath, the latter stimulating the pores. 

Why do doctors advise this use of the feet? 

To get the toxins out of the body, you will say. Yes, of course, 
but why the feet ? Because they have natural channels and outlets 
which are not found in other parts of the body. 

Then why not anticipate the doctor and the malady by the daily 
bath of the feet and lower legs; which means once a day; not in 
the daytime, but once every twenty-four hours; the best time being 
just before getting into bed at night. 


146 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


By so doing you will work off many of the collected poisons and 
save the possibility of many a cold. 

Do not forget the details of the Regime bath, which are: 

Hot water and soap-suds in which a little witch hazel, say a 
spoonful, has been poured. 

Thorough washing. 

Rinsing in clean warm water. 

A dash of very cold water. 

A hot dry towel for immediate wiping. 

Do not bathe the upper part of the body in any water in which 
you have stood or sat even for a few seconds. The custom of 
putting mixed water, that is hot and cold, in the bathtub, then 
getting into the water with the feet, and bathing the whole body 
in that water is vile and filthy. There are persons who even bathe 
the neck and face with such water. 

When their attention is called to the fact, they may remark that 
the poison from the feet is so slight that it cannot affect the whole 
body, and then they say they rinse themselves off with clean water. 
Both of these propositions are badly founded. In the first place, 
the claim that there is not much poison on the feet and legs and 
middle of the body is not true. The test has been made a number 
of times by taking such water as soon as the body has been in it 
and before any soap has been applied, or any washing done; and 
extracting the fluids that the pores excrete by mere contact with 
the water; and this poison, small as it may seem in bulk, is suf¬ 
ficient to kill a large Newfoundland dog. 

It is this very poison that the body needs to get rid of, and it 
comes from countless millions of pores that are sewers; the most 
virulent of it coming from the hips, legs and feet. 

Now where is the civilization that will bathe the face, neck and 
upper part of the body in the excretions from the filthy parts, and 
on the theory that the after-rinsing will bring cleanliness ? 

No after-cleansing or rinsing will undo the evil that is done 
when the upper half of the body is bathed in the water and excre¬ 
tions from the lower half. 

When the whole body is to be bathed, the better way is to set the 
water running in the bathtub from a double-bibb supply ; soap the 
body; then wash as the water flows through the double-bibb. This 
prevents any water from accumulating in the tub, for it runs out 
as fast as it runs in, and clean, fresh water is always being used. 


HIGH REGIME. 


147 


The stylish but non-civilized way of building the bathtub is to 
provide for the entrance of the water through a hot and a cold 
bibb, or else through an aperture in or near the bottom of the tub. 
This prevents the clean way of bathing. A double bibb is a single 
supply bibb into which the two pipes lead, and the water can then 
be tempered to suit the degree of warmth required. Under the 
single bibb system, or hot and cold water entrance pipes, each having 
a separate bibb, it is necessary either to use all hot water or all 
cold water, or else to make the mixture in the tub and then get 
into it and thus bathe with the excretions of the lower body. 

If your bathtub is thus arranged, it is better to get several pails 
of water, mixed to the temperature desired, and allow them to 
stand on chairs near the tub; then get into the latter, leaving the 
exit open; and wash the upper half of the body from the water of 
one pail; rinse from the water of another; and then proceed to 
wash the lower or middle part in the same way; and finally get to 
the feet. 

To give vigor and tone to the system the addition of a half pint 
of fine salt or the size next above table salt, to about ten gallons 
of water, and bathing in it after the whole body has been previously 
washed, and thoroughly rinsed, will prove highly beneficial. 

Special vigor and refreshing strength will be imparted to the 
skin and the nervous system by the following method: 

Take four ounces of salt, two ounces of ammonia, two ounces of 
spirits of camphor, eight ounces of alcohol and enough hot water 
to fill out a quart bottle. Dissolve the salt in hot water, then pour 
the camphor and ammonia into the alcohol and shake them to¬ 
gether until they are well mixed; add the dissolved salt and enough 
hot water to fill the quart bottle as stated. Each time before using 
shake the bottle thoroughly. The best way to apply is to first take 
a bath and rinse the body as already described, then wipe dry, 
and apply the above mixture to the parts of the body, such as the 
small of the back, the stomach, over the abdomen, the heart or neck, 
chest, etc. It will be found very refreshing and invigorating, and 
especially when there is fatigue. 

THINGS THAT ARE THE REVERSE OF THE 
POPULAR IDEAS. 

A number of natural laws are just the opposite of what they have 
been supposed to be. We will state them here, and say in ex- 


148 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


planation that experiment and repeated tests have brought the facts 
to light regardless of the old-time theories. 

1. A bath should not be taken on a full stomach. It has a 
tendency to bring on paralysis, or to seriously weaken digestion. 
We have a record of eighty-six cases of fatal paralysis following 
baths taken soon after eating. The best time for a bath is just 
before going to bed, or else soon after getting up in the morning. 

2 . Sleep or rest after eating is not the best for the health, if a full 
meal has been taken. It is a well established law of life that when 
the stomach is comfortably full, the faculty that is then used, such 
as the brain or the muscles, will receive the best nutrition and conse¬ 
quently be most increased and benefited. Experiments prove this 
law to be true. Rest after eating causes sluggishness and laziness. 

3. Exercise on an empty stomach used to be an old idea of the 
way to get health; but too much tax of the strength will deprive the 
stomach of its nervous power to carry on digestion, and it is pos¬ 
sible to get so tired that you cannot eat. A little gentle exercise 
before breakfast is all right, but there should be a gentle condition 
of all the muscles when meal time approaches, so as to throw the 
nervous strength to the stomach. It is now advised by many 
physicians that persons in weak health should take a rest by lying 
down before each meal. This is most excellent. It builds up the 
vitality. 

4. It is not true, as formerly supposed, that the purpose of food 
in a normal body is to supply past waste; but, on the other hand, 
the purpose of nature is to furnish fuel for coming exertions. We 
have had to combat some leading authorities that have taken the 
opposite view; but our proof has come in the form of thousands of 
experiments, and not from a desire to sustain a theory as old as 
the hills. It was only a year ago that a physician of high repute 
said to us: “ Your claim that food must look forward and not 
backward in its usefulness, is disproved by plenty of authority 
that existed before your Club was born.” We asked him if he 
had ever made any experiments, tests or observations, and he said 
he had not. We then inquired if he cared enough for the truth 
to make them in his own way and time. He thought he did. Three 
months ago he said to us, “ The Ralston idea is right.” We have 
always sought the truth, and not theories. We are after more light 
all the time. Our members help us, and we are making progress 
toward the great continent of facts in every department of life. 


HIGH REGIME. 


149 


10. Tenth Phase. —HABITS. 

It need hardly be said that there is no doctor, no regime, no diet 
and no plan of cure that can bring the results desired, if the habits 
of life are such that they conflict with the purposes of a curative 
regime. Some people know this; but there are many others who, 
if they know it, act exactly opposite to their knowledge. 

You cannot get good health if you defy the plain common sense 
doctrines of nature. Yet there are millions who are doctoring for 
maladies that they openly invite by the most positive abuses of their 
privilege of living. Millions are this day taking medicine and 
consulting physicians, spending money at home and in sanitariums, 
seeking a restoration of health while keeping up habits that make 
good health an absolute impossibility. What are they doing? 

Some are putting into their stomachs the very foods that are 
sure to destroy its power of digestion; and they add to their misery 
by taking patent medicines. 

Some are disregarding the laws of hygiene in their sleeping 
rooms. 

Some are turning night into day, and day into night, thinking 
that it does not make any difference. Millions are paying doctors 
to make them well in spite of the fact that they turn nature around. 
Early to bed and early to rise will never be reversed in the plan of 
health. 

Some are running to excesses in their marriage relations, and 
yet are demanding that their shattered constitutions be repaired 
by the skill of the physician. “ See that man?” asked a ^doctor 
the other day as he pointed out a feeble fellow of forty. “ He is 
spending a thousand dollars this year on his health; but there is 
nothing the matter with him except excess. No doctor will cure 
him. He has been told what the cause is, but he does not believe 
it ” We have knowledge of many such cases; and Ralstonism falls 
down before them all; it is helpless, and the invalids blame every- 
one but themselves. 

Some are stifling their lungs by sitting in bent positions, read¬ 
ing, sewing, or doing other work that may just as well be done by 
keeping the chest in its free position. This habit is well nigh 
universal; yet what is a doctor to do or a system of regime to ac¬ 
complish in such cases? Nothing. There must be plenty of 
fresh air put into the lungs every day, and it must find them open, 


150 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


free and eager for the wholesome draughts. Lung power, as far 
as respiration is concerned, is a measure of health and vitality. It 
can be cultivated to an almost unlimited extent, at any age in life 
above fourteen; and it is sure to bring corresponding advantages 
to all the faculties and functions of the body, if a reasonable degree 
of attention is given to the plain rules of living. 

Some give way to every change of feeling, until the nervous 
system becomes so sensitive to the little things of life that there 
is no peace in the mind or body. Irritability sets in, and then the 
thoughts become morbid and morose. This condition is one of habit 
only. If you “ let go ” of yourself when something happens that does 
not suit you, the habit will grow, and grow, and grow, and grow, 
until you will have no control whatever over yourself; and you will 
blame it upon any one of a dozen causes; it may be the food, the 
water, the room, the weather, the meanness of your friends, or 
any other imaginary cause. When there is nothing to attract your 
anticipation for the coming hours, everything will “ seem to go 
wrong,” but let some sweet companionship be expected, as where a 
lover or dear friend may be at your side in a few hours, and the very 
things that now seem to go wrong will all go right. This is human 
nature. Never “let go” of yourself. Irritability is the fore¬ 
runner of insanity, and of a kind that can be checked by proper 
habits. Self-magnetism will effectually ward it off, if you cannot 
master it in any other way. 

If you wish to study the tendency and nature of habits that 
undermine the health, look back to the four cardinal enemies in 
this book, and re-read them very carefully. 


11. Eleventh Phase. —OCCUPATION. 

By occupation is not meant what one does for a living, but what 
kind of interests, mental, physical and otherwise, are occupying 
your attention from day to day and year to year. A person is 
what he thinks, is an old adage, but the real truth is a person is 
what he does. 

You can do things with your mind, with your senses, with your 
hands and with your many other natures; for a human being is 
not one-sided, but has a multitude of parts and faculties that were 
made for use. 



HIGH REGIME. 


151 


The rule is this: There are in every human life certain fixed 
departments that have centers in the brain; they were made for 
use; and that which was made for use and is not used leads invaria¬ 
bly to an unbalancing of the life placed within the body. 

If the right hand was made for you, and you tie it up in a sling 
and so prevent it from being used, it will wither. We have seen an 
arm wither in three months; and we recall the foolish experiments 
of six men who went about for four months with one arm strapped 
to the side so that it might not be used, either day or night. There 
was no crowding and no stopping of the circulation, nor any re¬ 
lease at night as in the case of beggars who pretend to have lost 
an arm, etc. At the end of the four months, the men found that 
each had a shrivelled arm that was a pitiable sight; and it has taken 
years to even partially restore former conditions. Many similar 
cases have been reported from the prison life of other nations. 

Every department of the human body has a brain center; and 
there the brain cells are alive and active, and growing in proportion 
as the department of the body which they represent is given its 
corresponding activity. 

We wish we could state this law in simpler lauguage. 

It is so important that it should be written and re-written until 
the humblest mind can comprehend it. 

One great authority has stated it in this way: “Every part of 
the body, and every faculty of life, has millions of brain cells to 
support its power. When it is left unused, the brain cells do not 
grow, nor do they replace themselves by healthful new cells, but 
they 'shrink and suffer a wasting away which in time affects the 
adjacent parts of the brain, and the mind becomes more or less in¬ 
jured thereby. It is necessary for the brain’s health to avoid 
neglect of any faculty that is made an essential part of the whole 
life of the being.” 

It is like taking away the stomach, and saying that the body can 
get along without that organ; or removing the heart for the same 
reason; or the liver; or the kidneys; or the lungs; or any other part 
that is a necessary portion of the organism in which it dwells. 

If you take the cellar from under the house; or remove the walls; 
or any one of them; or take the floors away; or cut down the sup¬ 
porting joists; or otherwise interfere with the wholeness of the 
building, you will find it unbalanced and unsafe. The human body 
is likewise endangered by partial ruin. 


152 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Occupation is the science of feeding the brain life by supporting 
all its parts, if not equally, at least in sufficient degree to prevent 
any section of it from passing into what the physicians call atrophy, 
or withering, for a part of the brain will wither just as the arm does 
if the use of it is wholly denied that member. 

If you stimulate a certain set of brain cells (as is often done 
by way of experiment when accident has broken open the skull 
and death has not yet come), you will find that some part of the 
body is affected by the action. Thus it has been determined just 
what portions of the brain control the powers of articulative speech, 
what relate to song and music, what have to do with religious 
study, what with standing and walking or running, what with 
language or the development of words, and so on all through the 
divisions of mental life. But this branch of anatomy is not in 
any way connected with the so-called science of phrenology. 

We depend for our facts solely on what the anatomy of the 
brain shows; not in a few cases only, but in a general agreement of 
a large number of cases. When, as has often been found true, a blow 
on one part of the head will cause a piece of the skull to press on 
certain brain structure, and the result is the stimulating of a re¬ 
ligious nature that had hitherto been dormant, it must mean that 
there is a division of the mind that holds direct relationship to 
that branch of human life. But when this same part of the head 
in a large number of cases has, after injury, given rise to the same 
tendency, there can no longer be reason for doubting the closeness 
of the relationship. 

There are several cases where men were unable to talk fluently, 
being stupid in the use of spoken words, while brainy enough in 
all other respects; and injury to a certain part of the skull has set 
in motion the life of an unsued faculty, causing excessive fluency 
of speech. 

There are many other departments of the body or its faculties 
that have been affected by injury or excitement to corresponding 
parts of the brain. The bad feature with all such cases is that the 
faculty when developed has been abnormal, erratic and generally 
insane. 

But the connection between the certain part of the brain and the 
certain faculty has been well established; added to which is the 
fact that, when the faculty has been normally developed and in 
great power, the shape of the head has given unmistakable evi- 


HIGH REGIME- 


153 


dence of the possession of that faculty in unusual degree. The in¬ 
jury to the skull is an abnormal condition in itself, and the faculty 
could hardly be normal even under the most favoring of circum¬ 
stances. 

The foregoing references to the results of the most advanced 
science in this department of anatomy, serve to furnish the founda¬ 
tion for the following conclusions; all of which have, however, in 
a line of independent investigations and experiments, been much 
more than amply proved. They rest upon no doubt whatever. 

1. Every human life is balanced or unbalanced. If unbalanced, 
it is much more difficult to maintain the conditions of perfect 
health. The history of humanity shows conclusively that lon¬ 
gevity is most favored where there is an all-round balance of the 
faculties. 

2. One line of occupation, or one line of study, or one line of 
thought or feeling will soon unbalance the faculties of any man or 
woman. This does not conflict with the theory that a man of one 
great and predominating idea may make it a power among man¬ 
kind; but all such men have been lovers of many departments of 
life. The greatest orators have been workers in other lines of action; 
the greatest of lawyers have been skilled in other pursuits; the 
greatest of poets have run wild in the fields and over the earth; the 
greatest of musicians have had sub-attractions that have balanced 
their chief line of thought; and so it has been all through the long 
list of leading occupations. 

3. As human associations must have a head, and each branch its 
leader, so any life should have its predominating ambition and 
pursuit. But, in proportion as any one line of occupation or 
thought is allowed to absorb the other demands of life, there will 
come the lack of balance and the weakness, even in the dominant 
pursuit. 

4. In a general way, the departments of life are mental, physical, 
skillful, lingual, musical, natural and ethical. These may all be 
sub-divided into as many parts as one wishes, for there is no limit. 

MENTAL. 

5. Every person should weave a deep and lasting brain-tissue by 
the use of some kind of close mental study. If this is not done, the t 
surface of the brain only will be used, and this means the lack 
of good judgment in a very few years, as well as inability to battle 


154 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


with the forces that make or break every human life. Our memory 
treatment is the best guide for this kind of development. 

PHYSICAL. 

6. Every person should employ all the muscles of the body, if 
not in full action, at least enough to keep them and their relation to 
the brain in perfect poise; for health and longevity depend on 
this as much as on anything else in the world. Our Regime in 
the present book provides for that. One kind of muscular activity 
or labor is not sufficient. 


SKILLFUL. 

7. Every person should be skillful, either in mind or in muscle, 
in some one or more lines of work. Skill is a faculty that dis¬ 
tinguishes the normal being from the brute. Women used to be 
very skillful in many things, and all men had some side art even if 
they were in the professions, as the art of painting, which the great 
actor Jefferson employs so well. 

LINGUAL. 

8. Every person should study the depths of some language, and 
the nearer to perfection it is the greater will be the benefit to 
life. We recommend Yoldik because it is the only perfect lan¬ 
guage on earth. It opens the way to the understanding of English 
or any other language one may wish to master. 

MUSICAL. 

9. Every person should learn to listen to music in some form, 
even if there is no taste for it, and no ability to execute it. The 
musical nature is born and may be hidden away in some lives, 
but it is there in the many evidences that cannot be disputed. The 
higher the grade of music the more power it has of awakening the 
better impulses of the individual. We know of a number of in¬ 
stances in which men who could not endure any music were led to 
fall in love with the classic forms by patient listening. It seems 
that the brain cells were dormant and needed to be given nurture 
and growth. Cheap music holds the same relation to the better 
kinds that slang does to peotry or fine diction. 


HIGH REGIME. 


155 


NATURAL. 

10. Every person should have association with the outdoor life 
that is called nature. No great man or woman ever lived who 
did not have a passionate love for this wonderful realm. 

ETHICAL. 

11. Every person should have some interest, direct and of practi¬ 
cal force, in the ethical things of the world. These include the 
love of pure home life, the love of family and relatives, respect for 
the laws and the government, devotion to the principles of right and 
justice, and loyalty to some church. In an age when liberty of 
action is as free as the winds that blow, there is a growing ten¬ 
dency to neglect that great department of existence which is as 
much a portion of each human being as the floors and walls are a 
part of the house. We have never advised any Ralstonite what 
church to join or to attend, nor have we ever given the slightest 
hint as to a preference for any denomination; for that would be 
assuming a function that is wholly outside the pale of our duty. 
But we have always advised every Ralstonite to attend some church 
and give some time to the reading and study of the Bible. These 
serve to better prepare each person for the secular duties of the 
world; and it is a matter of record that, where such a balance 
prevails in the departments of life, greater success is attained and 
more substantial happiness is secured. 

Do not be a machine. 

If you are, you will run in fixed channels like an automaton, and 
the gearing will soon get worn and the machinery become fragile. 

Life is not worth living at all if it is not satisfactory to the person 
who lives it. Aimless and meaningless routine is not life; it is 
slavery. 

The Phases of High Regime are within the reach of all persons, 
and there is not a difficult step in the whole series. Even 
the Eleventh Phase is a very easy one for you, as it does not call for 
anything that is much out of the ordinary. You can gradually 
swing into it, almost without noticing the little change required 
to pass from your present mode of living to that of this beautiful 
and enjoyable kind of existence. 

In some form or other these Phases of High Regime have been 
in use for very many years; and the verdict from those who have 
lived up to the requirements is: 

“ Life never before seemed so sweet, so beautiful, so lovable.” 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 

_ 


Middle Reginje 

FOR . PERSONS . IN . FAIR . HEALTH 


IDDLE REGIME is fully described in Chapter Nine as 
far as it relates to the general plan of the Ralston 
system. It needs but a brief account in this chapter, 
as it is but a more liberal form of High Regime which 
has taken so much space in the preceding pages. 

Middle Regime includes Eight Phases, as follows: 

1. First Phase.—BREAKFAST. 

2. Second Phase.—NOON MEAL. 

3. Third Phase.—EVENING MEAL. 

4. Fourth Phase.—LUNCHES. 

5. Fifth Phase.—SLEEP. 

6. Sixth Phase.—EXERCISE. 

7. Seventh Phase.—BATHING. 

8. Eighth Phase.—HABITS. 

The remarks of the preceding chapter on High Regime as ap¬ 
plied to Lunches, Sleep, Exercise and Habits, all have equal force 
in Middle Regime. This leaves us only the question of the three 
principal meals and bathing to discuss at this place. 

Middle Regime makes no requirements as to Rising. The Early 
Night, or Occupation, as restrictions are found only in High 
Regime. 

Middle Regime does, however, insist on a careful observation of 
the rules laid down under High Regime in the matters of Lunches 
as they are much abused at the present day; and what is said of 
156 









MIDDLE REGIME. 


157 


Sleep ought to find a quick response in every sensible mind. 
Exercise may be increased at will; but the simple forms mentioned 
in High Regime are sufficient together with the other suggestions 
there made. Habits are of the utmost importance, and should be 
strictly followed as planned in High Regime. 

We come now to an enlargement of the privileges of the three 
meals known as breakfast, the noon meal and the evening meal; 
for Middle Regime is not as strict in dealing with persons in fair 
health as High Regime is in its care of those who are in weak 
health. 

BREAKFASTS IK MIDDLE REGIME. 

All that is said of breakfasts in High Regime may be taken as 
the guide for breakfasts in Middle Regime, except where additional 
foods are allowed; and the diet will be as follows: 

Drinks .—Some time before breakfast you should wash the intes¬ 
tinal canal with about two glasses of pure water, as cold as you 
wish it, provided you do not pour ice water directly into the 
stomach. The way to drink very cold water is to sip it, and swal¬ 
low very slowly. 

If you are thirsty just before eating, drink a glass of water at 
that time, and none at all during the meal. 

During the meal, you may take coffee if you crave it, but it 
should be sipped and not drank for the purposes of quenching 
thirst. All coffee, to be good, should be prepared as stated in the 
Second Phase of High Regime, as its usefulness depends upon the 
way it is cooked. Only one cup should be drank at a meal, and 
then without sugar. 

Hot milk may be taken, if it has not been boiled; it should be 
brought to a boil and then taken off to serve. 

Coffee mixed with milk, or chocolate mixed with milk, may be 
drank if the proportion of coffee or chocolate is not more than one- 
third to two-thirds milk. 

The powdered malted milk is an excellent drink; it should be 
prepard so as to have a cup one-third full of powder, on which 
very hot water has been poured to fill the cup. It must be well 
mixed. 

Tea is never allowed, either hot or cold, iced or otherwise. 

Milk, or milk enriched with cream, and iced, may be sipped, 
o Fruits begin the breakfast. The drinks are to be sipped all 
through the meal. 


158 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Any one of the following fruits may be taken as the first course: 

The juice of a sweet orange; a pear; an apple; a peach; straw¬ 
berries, if no sugar is used, and they are not known to be hurtful 
to the individual; blackberries, huckleberries or blueberries; rasp¬ 
berries ; plums; nectarines; apricots; grapes; ripe gooseberries that 
are sweet; or any other of the juicy fruits. There need not be a 
limit to one only or to any minimum quantity if the system needs 
a laxative; otherwise it is necessary not to invite a weak condition 
of the intestines. 

The bread for breakfast may include brown bread, white bread, 
corn bread, rye bread, and any other form of these cereals pro¬ 
vided there is nothing made of baking-powder. Sour milk may be 
used for raising, or eggs, as well as yeast. 

All forms of toast are allowable. 

Potatoes may be baked, boiled or fried if not made crisp; or they 
may be served in any condition that is mealy. 

Eggs may be served as follows, any one of the list being whole¬ 
some for the meal, and the variety may be extended through a 
long period before one need be repeated: 

Boiled Eggs; Steamed Eggs; Shrilled Eggs (the best way of all) ; 
Rumbled Eggs; Scalloped Eggs; Crumbed Eggs; that is, baked 
in bread crumbs; Poached Eggs; Milk Poach; Poached with Peas; 
Eggs in Toast Shells; Egg Timbales; Eggs in Nest; Bouillon Eggs; 
Egg Chowder and any other form that does not make the egg too 
hard for digestion. It is true that the stomach, by its own bac¬ 
teria which is furnished by the gastric-juices, will in time digest 
a hard boiled egg. It is a tax on a weak stomach. 

Meats may include broiled steak, or any form of beef that is de¬ 
sired; lamb or mutton chops, or these meats in any form; ham- 
burg steak; hash if known and liked; broiled oysters; pan fish; 
fried or broiled fish of any kind that is allowed under Chapter 
Thirteen; and veal that comes from an old or well developed calf, 
not from one that is less than four months old. Veal poisons some 
people and it should be eaten with caution. Eowl is allowable 
for breakfast if desired, but ducks and geese or any rich game must 
be avoided. 

Some persons eat breakfast foods. These are now made of so 
much refuse from flour mills, and contain so much harsh and in¬ 
digestible material, ground very fine, but all the more dangerous, 
that it is advisable to avoid all such foods. Some of the worst stuff 


MIDDLE REGIME- 


159 


that can be put up, actual sweepings of floors, are made exceedingly 
attractive in pretty packages, and nice reading matter and flaming 
advertisements allure on the belief that they are valuable as food. 
A few may be, but most of them are not. 

NOON MEALS IN MIDDLE REGIME. 

The mid-day meals of High Regime are as nearly perfect as they 
can be made; and greater liberality is only a step toward dangerous 
ground. We, therefore, recommend a strict adherence to the 
noon meals of High Regime with the following foods added: 

For drinks, black coffee, not strong, may be taken at or directly 
after the meal. Any of the breakfast drinks are allowable at any 
meal, and in any Regime. 

Clam broth, clam chowder, or bouillon of clam may be taken; 
but no part of the clam meat should enter the stomach. If clams 
are not perfectly fresh, or are used in a southern climate, even the 
broth from them is dangerous. 

Marrow soups are of the highest value. They are made of 
crushed bones thoroughly cooked, and ought to be on the table not 
less than three times a week, either at noon or in the evening. 

These, with the soups and broths of High Regime, give you over 
two dozen kinds for the noon meal of Middle Regime. 

For meats you may use any one kind of fish or any one meat 
from those mentioned in High Regime. Reference to Chapter 
Thirteen will be profitable at all times. The less meat you eat 
the better will be your health. 

Puddings in Middle Regime are allowed as follows: 

Steamed Raisin Pudding; Cracker Plum Pudding; Prune Pud¬ 
ding; Fig Custard Pudding; Fig Cream; Birds Fest Pudding; 
Apple Whipped Cream; Apple Custard Pudding; Compote of 
Peaches; Peach Custard Pudding; Almond Pudding; Chestnut 
Pudding; Pearl Barley Pudding; Fruit Tapioca; Tapioca Custard; 
Tapioca Pudding and all the rice and custard combinations. 

Frozen Custard may be taken, not oftener than three times a 
week, in place of ice cream; and all the ices given in High Re¬ 
gime may be used here also. 

EVENING MEALS IN MIDDLE REGIME. 

o Breads .—White flour bread. Whole wheat bread. Potato 
bread. Milk bread. French bread. Wheat and rye bread. 


160 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Raised corn bread. Pulled bread. Raised brown bread. Steamed 
corn bread. Canaille bread. Rusk. Bread wafers. Buns. Raisin 
bread. Bath buns. Coffee cakes. From these you may select any 
one or more kinds for the evening meal. In winter the use of 
corn meal and its various products will be more agreeable than in 
summer, as corn is heating to the blood. 

Potatoes may be used in any form so that they are mealy and 
not cooked either hard or crisp. 

Rice and other light foods that are easily digested are particu¬ 
larly important for the evening meal. Maraconi also holds a high 
place if not cooked or eaten with cheese. The latter food is more 
suitable for persons in robust health. 

Any of the fruits that are not known as the juicy kinds may be 
eaten at supper. In the consideration of the evening meal in 
High Regime we offered many valuable suggestions that should be 
referred to, as it is not necessary to repeat them here. 

BATHING IN MIDDLE REGIME. 

The bath that is called for in High Regime is always one of the 
most beneficial that can be taken; but a more vigorous style of 
bathing may at times be preferred. The following method has 
been in use for many years and is regarded as the most valuable 
that can be adopted when one bathes for cleanliness. 

Have a plumber remove the inlets to your bath tub, if you have 
one of the new style, and put in a double bibb, which consists of the 
hot and cold water pipes running together and emptying out of 
one spigot instead of flowing separately. This will enable you to 
get the proper temperature and yet have running water to use. See 
that the outlet is open all the time, as you should never bathe in a 
tub that retains the water. 

Soap the neck, ears and tops of the shoulders; wash them with 
hot water; rinse them with hot water and then with cold water 
and at last with cold water, all of which you can get by regulating 
the two supply pipes as they run into the double bibb. 

Wipe the face, ears, neck and tops of the shoulders with a hot 
towel. This completes the first part of the bath. The pores of the 
upper parts that have been bathed will soon become very active, 
but will not perspire. A glow of electrical warmth will flush 
those parts, and new currents of blood will supply the skin and 
nerves with nutrition that cannot be got there in any other way. 


CHAPTER TWENTY 

_ 


LoW Regime 


FOR . PERSONS . IN . ROBUST . HEALTH 


OW REGIME is fully explained in Chapter Nine as far 
as it relates to the plan of the present system of health. 
That chapter ought to be thoroughly read and under¬ 
stood ; for it makes the three Regimes stand out as the 
most important of all methods of bringing the body 
back again to health and keeping it there when once the happy 
goal has been reached. 

Low Regime includes Five Phases as follows: 

1. First Phase.—BREAKFAST. 

2. Second Phase.—NOON MEAL. 

3. Third Phase.—EVENING MEAL. 

4. Fourth Phase.—LUNCHES. 

5. Fifth Phase.—HABITS. 

The last two may be disposed of with the remark that they are 
exactly like those of the same name in High Regime. The 
lunches must not be more elaborate, as the purpose of a lunch is to 
stay the appetite and prevent dull headaches which come on 
naturally when the stomach has been empty long. We do not 
use the word lunch to imply a course dinner. 

It is in the nature of things that all the articles that are al¬ 
lowed in either of the preceding Regimes should also he permitted 
in Low Regime, for the liberty is greater. Therefore, you can keep 
as close to High Regime as you like, or to Middle Regime if you 
prefer that. The foods mentioned are not all to he used, if 
you have preferences, as the lists are made large to permit you to 
select what may strike your fancy or appeal to your appetite. 

161 










162 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


BREAKFASTS IK LOW REGIME. 

Drinks. —Coffee, one cup only, to be sipped all through the 
meal, or it may be omitted altogether.—Malted milk powder, mixed 
with hot water, and sipped.—Hot milk.—Hot milk, flavored with 
coffee.—Hot milk, flavored with chocolate.—Cold milk.—Phasmon 
cocoa.—In no case must sugar be used. Any one of the foregoing 
drinks may be selected for Low Regime, as well for dinner as for 
breakfast. 

Fruits .—Select any one of the following juicy fruits to begin 
breakfast with.—Oranges. Apples. Pears. Peaches. Plums. 
Grapes. Green fleshed muskmelon. Fully ripe watermelon. Black¬ 
berries. Huckleberries. Raspberries. Sweet gooseberries. Fully 
ripe sweet cherries. Strawberries. Nectarines. Apricots.—In no 
case must sugar and fruit be eaten together. Pineapples are not 
juicy enough to be used for the breakfast, as they require sugar, and 
they are likely to sicken the stomach instead of stimulating its 
action. The best way to eat pineapple juice is after a meal at the 
time when candy is taken. Watermelons contain a poison that 
encourages malaria, and it should not be eaten in quantity, nor by 
any person who has had chills and fever. 

Breakfast Foods .—The only breakfast foods that ought to be 
eaten are those that have a standing in the judgment. In the first 
place you should know how they are cooked. Do not eat pie¬ 
crust, for these flaked goods are little better. They will soon bring 
the stomach to a standstill. The purpose of the mills seems to be 
to make a food that has a splendid taste, so that the eater will be¬ 
come enthusiastic about it and recommend it to friends on one 
trial. If you wish to know what these much advertised foods will 
do, try them right along as whole meals to the exclusion of every¬ 
thing else. This test can be applied to hundreds of wholesome 
dishes, and the stomach will be all the better for it although any 
one food may not be balanced enough to sustain life indefinitely as 
some articles will do. 

Try rice, milk, white bread, whole wheat bread, pearl barley, rye 
bread, brown bread, corn meal pudding, sago, tapioca, hominy or any 
of the many articles and dishes we have recommended in the two* 
preceding Regimes, and you will find not one of them hurting you, 
if you use any one article for a complete meal. 

The test is a correct one. If you find that there are two hun¬ 
dred dishes that can be taken in this way and not hurt you, then 


LOW REGIME- 


163 


these very dishes, when taken in variety and in groups, will be all 
the more wholesome. 

But try the advertised breakfast foods in that way, and note the 
result. We recommend the use of whole wheat long cooked and eaten 
with cream or milk ; also of rice ; also of wheatlet; also of hominy; 
also of corn meal; also of shredded wheat; also of corn meal mush 
fried or otherwise prepared, which is akin to a breakfast food; but 
care must be taken not to use sugar on any of them, even if the re¬ 
ceipts call for it. The union of sugar and cereal, or milk, cream and 
any sweet, causes ferment even in a healthy stomach. The taste for 
the cream -and the food alone will soon be established, and the 
sickening effects of sugar will be avoided. If hominy, rice, corn 
meal, or any cereal that comes in bulk, like whole wheat, etc., is to 
be used, they should be cooked a long time, surely not less than 
two hours, and then browned in the oven to take away the flat 
taste. Out of these you can get plain, wholesome and first class 
foods, that you know all about, and the cost will be about one-fifth 
of the package foods, which are generally tricks of the palate. 

Small Breads .—Select any of the following breads for your 
breakfast in Low Regime: Raised biscuit, made from white flour, 
or whole wheat flour, or rye flour. Beaten Maryland Biscuit. 
Buttermilk Biscuit. Raised Muffins. Rye Muffins. Toasts, dry, 
milk or cream. Egg Toast. Egg Rolls. Potato Pone. German 
Puffs. Pop Overs. 

Loaf Breads .—Select any one or more of the loaf breads from 
this list: Whi^e flour. Whole wheat flour. French bread. Pulled 
bread. European bread. Wheat-rye bread. White flour milk 
bread. Potato white bread. Canaille bread. Gluten bread. Date 
bread. Norwegian bread. Raisin bread. 

Potatoes .—Select any one or more of the following preparations 
of potatoes for your Low Regime Breakfast: Baked potatoes. 
Boiled potatoes. Broiled potatoes. Browned potatoes. Creamed 
potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Sweet potatoes (not oftener than twice 
a week). Stewed potatoes. 

Eggs. —Boiled, steamed, scrambled, shirred, rumbled, scalloped, 
poached eggs and lightly made omelets, or eggs in nest, egg tim¬ 
bales and any of the other forms that do not call for frying or for 
use with some indigestible food, are allowable. 

Fish and Meats .—Any of the meats and fish that are mentioned 
as wholesome in Chapter Thirteen are useful for the breakfast. 


164 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


In low regime, which presumes the health to be perfect, or 
nearly so, the greatest latitude should be allowed, for it is absurd 
to ask a well person to deny the palate and stomach the pleasures 
of eating if these have already become a part of the habits of the 
table. Old habits ought to be let alone when they are known to 
be safe. Perfect health is a good digester. It furnishes its own 
medicine. Many men and women love to claim that they possess 
robust health, when the fact is quite the opposite. This kind of 
falsehood is getting to be too common. The presence in the 
house of the pills and medicine bottles is proof that the truth is 
not often told when the assertion of perfect health is made. 

But really assuming that you do in fact possess freedom from 
all weakness and suffering, and that your body is in the best con¬ 
dition, then we assert that your past habits, as to food and methods 
of living should be maintained unless your own judgment tells 
you that they are radically wrong. 

This is the basis on which the new work, RALSTON MEALS, 
has been prepared. It allows freedom for persons in the Third 
Regime. Yet it avoids some dishes and combinations that will 
surely undermine perfect health. It suits the taste of all classes 
of healthy men and women, and is not radical in either extreme. 

It is necessary to provide for all classes of people; for what is 
good for one is not good for another. While doing this great 
work we are constantly being charged by ignorant persons with 
contradicting our own statements. We know every word by heart 
that we publish in this series of books, and we are in a position to 
judge of the effects that follow the adaptation of foods to differ¬ 
ent conditions in life. If one class of individuals should be given 
certain foods, and another class should be given foods that are 
exactly opposite, these differences are not conti adictions. What 
will benefit one may kill another. 

The seeker after health should cling to the First Regime of 
this book, unless there is a certainty that some specific disease is 
at work in the system; in which case the book of Complete Mem¬ 
bership is the only treatment that a wise person will adopt. 

But the well man or woman who wishes to protect the health 
that is already possessed should be liberal in all the pleasures of 
life to the extent that they have been previously enjoyed, and 
there is no contradiction in the wide variety and liberality of 
Ralston Meals. ; 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 


Absolutely Forbidden 

Every Ralstonite who lacks Good Health 
must obey these laws 


INVALIDS * SHOULD * AVOID * HURTFUL . FOODS 


EGATIVE PROPOSITIONS are always necessary in 
in any system that seeks to accomplish important 
results; and, for this reason, we find ourselves tearing 
down as well as building up. Members have from time 
immemorial made requests for a negative guide, telling 
them in a single chapter what they must not eat or drink; while the 
main chapters of the book may give the affirmative side of the 
system of health. Advice that demolishes and does not build anew 
would be useless. 

The Three Regimes are suited to the three classes of people for 
whom they were prepared. But there are depths of error below 
even the most liberal of regimes, and these are the foundation of 
the present chapter. When any Ralstonite complains that the 
system does not give the help expected, let that person read this 
chapter and find out the cause; for it will be here. 

THE FORBIDDEN THINGS OF LIFE. 

1. Drinks .—You must not use any drinks that are SWEET¬ 

ENED, as fermentation is sure to follow their use, and fermenta¬ 
tion destroys the action of all the digestive fluids. > 

2. ICE WATER.—This is never dangerous when taken in small 
sips; but is quite harmful when swallowed rapidly. There is' 

165 














166 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


an enormously large class of people, mostly men, who do not care 
for results so that they quench thirst. There are two dangers 
from drinking freely of ice water : 

A.—It lowers the action of the heart and weakens the vitality 
of the body. 

—II contracts the stomach, and forces food out before it is 
digested. 

3. Quantities of Water .—Even if it is not ice cold, water drank 
in large quantities is injurious, for it destroys the tone of the 
nervous system as far as it relates to the stomach. A person may 
drink slowly a pint or less of water on arising in the morning, 
and this will generally be found an advantage; but so great a 
quantity at any one tirfie during the day will be hurtful. A glass 
before each meal is beneficial; but water must not be made to take 
the place of saliva or gastric juice, for serious indigestion will 
follow. 

4. HARD WATER.—This causes intestinal troubles with in¬ 
fants, and brings on old age and limy deposits with adults. Hard 
water also contains, in many instances, chemical poisons that lead 
to the rum of the blood or some organ. We know of many cases 
where a decided improvement in health has come from a change 
in the drinking water. Millions are suffering from the use of 
hard water; and some of them are in continual agony, with no 
knowledge of the cause. 

5. Mineral Waters .—The claim that a mineral water cures dis¬ 
ease is based on the fact that its chemicals may neutralize some 
toxin in the blood, although at the expense of setting up some 
other toxin. From a list of thousands of users of mineral waters, 
we find not one person who is well, and all seem to be getting 
worse from year to year. 

6. Charged Water .—Any gas-water is injurious. The carbonic 
acid gas is a poison, and it causes great depression and sinking 
spirits. This is the gas that comes out of the lungs, and that, 
in a crowded hall, leads to headache and fainting. Four per¬ 
sons went down into a well and did not come up. A fifth des¬ 
cended, but was dead in a minute. Carbonic acid gas is heavier 
than air; it sinks in wells and hollows; and produces death very 
quickly. There is no sense in drinking it in charged waters. 

7. SODA WATER.—This is full of carbonic acid gas. See the 
preceding paragraph. 


ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN. 


167 


8. FRUIT SODAS.—There is additional danger in the use 
of juices and syrups in soda. The combination is sure to leave deat 
in the system, and this sets up toxins; for a rank ferment is the 
result. More than this, the drinking of soda water in any form with 
juices, syrups, cream, etc., is unsatisfying and generally sickening. 
Thousands of women and girls in the cities have a thirst and a 
eraze for this concoction, and by indulging in it before meals they 
deprive themselves of appetite, and so are compelled to resort to 
stimulants. 

9. ALCOHOL.—This fluid is a form of carbon made from any 
earbon in nature, and commonly from the foods of life, such as 
sugars, starches and syrups, without which there could be no food 
whatever for humanity. In infancy there is a decided demand for 
sweets, and even the sugar of ordinary milk which gives it great 
sweetness is not by any means enough to supply the demands of the 
child-stomach. For this reason nature makes the mother’s milk 
much sweeter than the cow’s. All through the early years the child 
is attracted to carbon in candies, sugars and white bread. At first 
it cannot digest fats or starches, and depends on sugars in or out 
of milk; then it takes up the digestion of the starches in the cereals; 
and soon it begins to digest animal fats as butter and the greasy 
part of meat. As old age comes on the system gradually loses its 
power to digest fat meat, and then cannot, later on, digest even 
butter; the use of either serving as a mild laxative and passing 
through the body unchanged. This is a serious condition for old 
age and should be discovered as soon as it is established. It 
is then that the carbon of the sugars and starches in the form of 
alcohol becomes of the highest use to decrepitude, and tends to 
preserve the faculties longer than any other agent can do. 

But in childhood, in youth, in middle life and in that part of 
age during which the system will maintain its weight, the fats are 
being digested; and the rule is this: In proportion as you use al¬ 
cohol during such periods, in the same porportion will it be in¬ 
effective at that time when the body refuses to digest fats, and the 
alcohol is needed. We have seen this law work almost miracles; for 
those people who use alcohol all their lives do not get the benefit 
from it at a time when it is most needed. Therefore, this fluid 
must be saved to take the place of fats in the winter of life, and it 
will do a world of good, provided it has not been used prior to that 
time; that is, before the age of seventy or eighty. 


168 THK RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

10. ALL COFFEE IMITATION'S or substitutes are to be 
avoided. Most of them are compounded with chemicals and extracts 
that are deadly poisons when taken by the spoonful. Of course, 
a few drops do not kill, but you will feel heartburn and stomach- 
burn after using them. 

11. TEA in every form is injurious. The debility of old age, and 
the aging of young people who use it, are evidences of its hurt- 
fulness. If you wish to get old by the rapid transit line take tea. 
Iced tea is so injurious that the United States Chief Chemist felt 
it his duty to issue an account of its dangers. 

12. SPECIAL DRINKS should all be avoided. They are in¬ 
vented each year by the score to attract thirsty people; and there is 
no hesitancy in making them palatable to the drinker. Examina¬ 
tion of many of these summer drinks shows that they are based 
upon poisons that hold a resemblance to some flavor or some strong 
drink, or that appeal to the taste as particularly inviting. The 
worst of all these are the drinks that are supposed to build up the 
nervous system or give tone to fagged brain. A Ralstonite ought 
to have some certain knowledge of what enters his stomach, and 
this knowledge is lacking in the use of the mysteriously compounded 
summer drinks or the specialties of winter. 

13. Lemonade mixed with sugar or sweets is an irritant, but 
free from such sweets or sugar it is highly beneficial. 

14. BREAKFAST FOODS, except those mentioned in the 
three Regimes, should be avoided. 

15. ALL BAKING POWDER and its products of every kind 
must be avoided. This will throw out very many foods, and by 
the ton, so numerous are the products of baking powder. This is 
the lazy cook’s friend, for it takes less kneading and working of the 
dough or mixture if such powder is used. So universal has the 
habit become that it is said that one ton of baking powder is now 
sold where, a generation ago, a pound was used; and so cheap is 
white earth and alum that the stores of the land, even to the re¬ 
motest country hamlet, are supplied with the poison. Right on 
the heels of this amazing spread of the use of baking powders, the 
patent medicine trade follows and seeks to keep pace. It is 
death pulling at both ends of human effort to maintain life and 
health. 

16. All CAKES, fried, or baked, and all biscuits, muffins, or 
articles that depend on baking powder in any way, are forbidden. 


ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN. 169 

17. All STAECHY FOODS that are cooked in a short time, 
such as pancakes, breakfast foods, pastry, desserts, etc., are to be 
omitted from the eatables of humanity. They are almost wholly in¬ 
digestible and of no value as food, while they bring disease by clogg¬ 
ing the system. Nearly all the dietary of the civilized world of to¬ 
day is made of such foods, and this fact alone might explain the 
prevalence of so much ill health. The deat from these indigestible 
articles brings on toxins in the system, and la grippe is but the 
effect of nature to throw them off with the least possible wear and 
tear. 

18. All COMBINATIONS that make ferment in the stomach and 
intestines are to be avoided. That this ferment is common may he 
learned by the ear. At a recent meeting of women who were en¬ 
gaged in certain work for charity, out of eighteen who were present, 
ten were constantly suppressing the sound of rumbling in their 
intestines, and the other eight were eructating gas from the stomach. 
This is typical of America to-day. 

19. SUGAE and FEUIT acids, or sugar and cereals, or sugar 
and cream, or sugar and butter, or sugar and nuts, will produce this 
ferment. It makes gas in the stomach and it causes the rumbling 
sound in the intestines. Such ferment is the natural result of the 
mixtures referred to. For instance, as a test a dozen men of good 
health ate a supper of corn meal mush with sugar and cream, and 
they all had more or less of the troublesome fermenting gases for 
hours; but when, on a subsequent evening, they ate corn meal mush 
with cream and omitted the sugar, not one of them had the least 
trouble, and the food was readily digested. If you eat any nuts 
by themselves, and later on eat candy, the gastric juices will have 
disposed of the nuts by a combination that will not permit a union 
of the sugar; but when nuts and sugar, as in the common kinds of 
nut candy, are eaten together, ferment will follow. This ferment 
is not specially hurtful for many years; it takes time to do its full 
harm, but when the health is weak the ferment instantly upsets the 
system. In nursing the sick, all doctors and all trained nurses 
who have any sense know well enough that such foods are to be 
omitted. In health they cause indigestion by their enmity to the 
gastric juices. 

20. OATS, oatmeal and all forms of oats should be avoided. 
The juice of the starch of oats, as in porridge with milk, may 
be suited to hardy outdoor life, but the breakfast foods made of 
oatmeal are not fit for the human stomach. Yet groats are all right. 


170 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


21. WHOLE BARLEY is indigestible in any form. Pearl bar¬ 
ley is very valuable in soups; or soaked over night, and then cooked 
in the morning and toasted for a breakfast food. Buy it in bulk, 
not in package. 

22. PEARL TAPIOCA is not digestible, as it is made of very old 
potatoes and is not tapioca. 

23. DRIED CURRANTS are poison berries and not currants; 
nothing is more hurtful than these, yet they are in comman use. 
Never eat mince meat or cake or bread in which they appear. 
Avoid citron. 

24. NEW POTATOES are undeveloped starch and are indiges¬ 
tible until the new potato is old enough to boil to a mealy condi¬ 
tion or make mashed potatoes. 

25. VERY OLD POTATOES, or any soggy, waxy kind of this 
vegetable will harm the stomach. 

26. DUMPLINGS and pot pie, or any similar form of dough- 
food, should be avoided. 

27. CRANBERRIES and sugar, gooseberries and sugar, straw¬ 
berries and sugar, sour apples and sugar, and all sour-and-sweet 
mixtures are injurious as they slowly form uric acid in a well per¬ 
son ; but in one who has such acid or is gouty they quickly increase 
the evil, as may be readily demonstrated. 

28. BEANS and PEAS have a cover which is totally indigesti¬ 
ble; if they are cooked for several hours and then strained, they 
make a good porridge. Baked beans will distress all who eat them, 
unless the health is very robust. The least injurious part in which 
they are cooked is the fat, which most people have regarded as the 
cause of the trouble; but experiments show that the fat by itself 
taken from baked beans and eaten on bread is very wholesome and 
easily digested, while the baked beans without the fat are still 
harder to assimilate. Split peas are now made with the covering 
removed, and they are excellent when well cooked. 

29. NEW CORN passes through the body as it enters it, un¬ 
changed except that some of the juice is absorbed. It does very 
little harm to a perfect stomach. It would be an unsafe food to 
give to one who is not in good health. It may be chewed and the 
juice swallowed if desired. 

30. The many small vegetables such as radishes, cucumbers, 
pickles and other kinds are so thoroughtly discussed in Chapter 
Eourteen that we cannot take the time to go over the rules there 


ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN. 


171 


given. What has been said of them there should be well con¬ 
sidered. 

31. VINEGAR is undoubtedly the cause of the rapid loss of red 
corpuscles in the blood of many persons who use it* either in con¬ 
nection with other articles or with pickles. A pickle is filled with 
vinegar. We have many reports from cases where girls who were 
anaemic could not be cured until they stopped eating pickles and 
vinegar. The latter has no real use in any system of food prepara¬ 
tion. Most Ralstonites never have vinegar in the house. 

32. FRESH PORK is always bad. The skin and blood show 
very quickly the effects of eating this fearfully rotten meat; for it 
is an example of death in life, as its tissues are filled with deat. 
The penalties are severe for its use. On the other hand we would 
be cranky if we were to say that fat pork, as in bacon and ham, were 
useless as food. Even lean ham well chewed gives up a lot of its 
fat, and the tissue need not be swallowed. There is no better form 
of fat than that which comes from salted or cured pork; and lard 
would be wholesome if it were not fried or baked, although its 
severe trying out in making has burned up its better quality. 
The United States Government places an enormous estimate on the 
value of fat pork, either salted or cured. Physicians know that 
growing pains in children and youth, and even neuralgia may be 
overcome by these fats when no medicines will do the slightest 
good; as such pains are the voice of the body crying for a more 
vitalized form of life. Let us be fair. Do not discard one of the 
greatest blessings of life for a whim. The tissue of lean pork is 
all you vegetarians say of it, for it is rotten and vile, but do not 
run counter to the easily proved facts in regard to the fat, for 
that is the same in the animal world that distilled water is in its 
relation to the ocean, or fruits in their relation to the earth from 
which they spring. All foods and fruits and vegetables are but 
distilled forms of the soil. Facts are better than theories, and no 
person knows the facts who has not found them through ex¬ 
periments, and by watching the operations of life. Be honest 
with the laws of nature. 

33. SHELLFISH, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, clams, terrapins, mus¬ 
sels, when fresh are hurtful; and when canned are still more in¬ 
jurious. Fried oysters are very harmful; but oysters in other forms 
are wholesome if the mud in their intestines is not eaten. Cut it 
out. Roes are of no value, as their deat is very great in proportion 


172 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

to the very little nutriment they contain. A fresh, live lobster may 
not do much harm if cooked at home and eaten fresh; but, even 
then, it is more or less of a poison. Many a case of acute gas¬ 
tritis has originated with the eating of fresh lobster, while death 
has followed quickly after the use of those that are canned. 

34. SAUSAGES are to be avoided. 

35. SPICES are all hurtful. 

36. RICH GRAVIES must never be used. It is possible to make 
palatable gravies without turning them into instruments of sick¬ 
ness. Chefs love to mystify their employers by concoctions that 
would kill people if taken in dose. In fact the French notions in 
cooking are the cause of so much gastritis that has sent all the 
millionaires to some parts of the world to institutions that are 
advertised to cure thousands of ailments. 

DEAT is the dead matter in a live body. It is that accumula¬ 
tion of fine material that cannot throw itself off until it turns to 
toxins, and then these are dependent on the germs of disease to ab¬ 
sorb them. It is on the same principle as that employed by nature 
to dispose of decay in the animal or vegetable world. Fruit rots 
and falls to the ground; bacteria soon are changing it to other forms 
of life and other bacteria follows up their work until the ground is 
clean again where it lay. Flesh passes through many stages of 
change before it is all removed. The first of these changes begins 
in the live body, and is healthful; the next is due to the inability 
of the first to do all its work, as is the case in a body that is fed 
on a, wrong diet, and the result is the accumulation of death in 
small form that permeates the live body. In our Anti-Death 
Treatment this whole process is seen at work, and is met by one of 
the most ingenious of methods ever applied to the natural war 
against sickness. 

Wrong diet, or eating the things that are forbidden, will soon fill 
the body with deat, which is death in life. 

While many of the supposed good things are denied, it must be re¬ 
membered that there are many more that are as pleasing to the taste 
that are wholesome. The remedy for so great a condition in the 
world of semi-sickness, is the selection of food that will not bring 
on disease. All persons know that the first thing the doctor does 
on arrival is to stop the eating of these hurtful things; he shuts it 
off with a decisiveness that shows their relation to health. Then 
he starts to clean out the system through the many natural chanr 


ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN. 173 

nels, all of which he finds abnormal; he increases the action of the 
pores, the heart, the lungs, the intestines and their organs, the 
liver and kidneys. They are all out of order; yet it is a fact that, 
if the food had been proper, they would all be in good condition. 

A FEW REMARKS ON THE FORBIDDEN THINGS. 

Because we limit members who are not in good health to whole¬ 
some articles of food and drink, do not make the mistake of re¬ 
garding this as a form of dieting, for it is not. 

We have one thousand Regents. Each Regent is bound to make 
a test of any proposition of health by seeking the aid of one 
hundred persons in the trial of an article of food or drink, for 
the purpose of establishing the fact one way or another. We can, 
therefore, on notice, make 100,000 experiments or tests in this 
way. Results that are uniform cannot be tossed aside with a sneer 
or a jocose remark. 

Facts have been accumulated mountain high to the effect that the 
articles that are forbidden are injurious to people who are not in 
good health. Well persons may use them, but should not overuse 
them, for these very articles do a slight damage even to those who 
are in absolutely perfect health. But some people may go for 
years and not suffer from them; or the effects may develop latent 
maladies that come without warning. 

This chapter does not require you to diet. There are countless 
good things left in the ordinary foods of to-day. We have often 
been requested to prepare a list of foods that are best, and have 
done so under the name of 

“Ralston Meals” 

for every day in the year, and how to prepare them. 

1. WHAT TO EAT WITHOUT DIETING. 

2. HOW TO COOK SENSIBLE MEALS. 

3. LUXURY OF GOOD EATING WITHOUT INJURY TO 
THE HEALTH. 

4. MANY NEW DISHES AND HOW TO MAKE THEM. 


Published in book form, price fifty cents, and for sale by 

Ralston Company, Washington, D. C. 





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 

... 


A S ocial Cl}at 

WITH . OUR . LOYAL . MEMBERS 


OST PERSONS like to write or talk about Ralstonism, 
and we are always gratified when we receive letters of 
inquiry from intelligent men and women. While it 
is difficult, and often impossible to reply individually 
to those who are kind enough to write to us, we never¬ 
theless give attention to all sensible suggestions, and thereby come 
into closer relations with the wishes of all who are interested in 
the good work that we are doing. 

We assume that you have read this book carefully, and that 
you understand the value of its doctrines. Before bringing its 
pages to a close we wish to have a personal chat with the reader, 
in the hope that new influences may come into each life that is 
reached by these teachings. Let us state a few facts. 

Health is very important. 

When it goes, all ambition and enjoyment go with it. 

The sickly body, the low vitality, the impoverished blood, and 
the train of ills that follow these conditions, produce nervous 
irritability, reduce the mental powers, and unfit men and women 
for the civic, moral and domestic duties of existence. 

If you are not in good health, and can come into its possession, 
then you are committing a sin against yourself, your family and 

your God by neglecting this first of all requirements of earthly 
life. J 

Lives of dear ones are worth the effort necessary to save them. 

We ask of you, then, that you take up this great work with us; 
not along peculiar or radical lines, but with a deep, earnest" 
prayerful resolution to be of service to mankind in this the 
crucial era of human existence, when the whole race is on the 
174 














A SOCIAL CHAT. 


175 


verge of collapse by reason of universal fraud in the making of 
advertised medicines and the preparation of adulterated foods. 

When the blood is thrown out of balance by improper diet, an 
intense and uncontrollable craving is set up for stimulants and 
false nutriment, which leads the mind into constant error, and 
produces an obstinate refusal to listen to the dictates of judg¬ 
ment. For this reason the first real step in a sensible method of 
living is to adopt a course of liberal but scientific eating such as 
is found in Ralston Meals. 

But the thinking person who is willing to learn will demand 
a more thorough training course; and this book of Inside Mem¬ 
bership is what is then needed. 

Most persons are actually sick with some malady. Some have 
uric acid, and this leads to rheumatism. Some are victims of 
neuralgia, that great warning condition of something worse to 
follow. Some are saturated with catarrh, either of the head, or 
lungs, or throat, or stomach, or intestines; in the latter case re¬ 
sulting sooner or later in appendicitis, which will send them to 
the operating table at the hospital. How much better it is to 
avert rather than cure such conditions? The use of patent medi¬ 
cines and modern cooking are responsible for this dread malady. 

Those who are actually sick refuse to give heed to preventive 
methods, and we have always been compelled to furnish curative 
treatments and special private cures. As this is a gigantic un¬ 
dertaking it has required the expenditure of a fortune, and the 
publishing of a giant volume, the name of which is Complete 
Membership. 

It is easy to fall prey to a fatal malady. 

The grave will not give back its dead. 

It is too late when the spirit has fled. Look to-day into the 
faces of those about you whom you love, and ask yourself the 
question, Are they worth the care and attention requisite to pre¬ 
vent their being taken away by the Angel of Death? 

IP YOU ARE PERFECTLY WELL, or are almost well, 
then KEEP that wonderful blessing, for you are favored above 
scores of thousands of others in this world. You can keep that 
perfect health by adopting the easier plan of living set forth in 
this book. That is, you may consider yourself a Third-Regime 
Ralstonite, and that is most excellent. 

0 If you are NOT WELL, then your physician will advise you 




176 THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 

to adopt either the High Regime or the Middle Regime of this 
book; so why wait till he orders it, when you can now adopt it 
for yourself and in a much more successful way. 

Do you know that the best doctors to-day, those that are the 
leaders in their profession, or else are great specialists, are gradu¬ 
ally reducing the use of medicines, and in place thereof are pur¬ 
suing such lines of treatment as are contained in this book and 
that of Complete Membership? 

Do you know that all medicines, whether vegetable or mineral, 
are poisons? The vegetable compounds are as dangerous as those 
made from minerals. 

Do you know that the use of patent medicines is slow suicide? 

Opium, cocaine, deadly drugs, wood alcohol and the most horrible 
concoctions of which human invention is capable, are sold to-day 
in the form of patent medicines, and are setting up habits that 
no mind is strong enough to throw off. 

Here it can be seen at a glance that there must be three works 
to suit all conditions in the membership of our Club. One is the 
work that settles the food question, Ralston Meals. The price 
of fifty cents shows that it has been brought down to the lowest 
possible cost. 

The book of the Ralston Health Club is the present Inside 
Membership. Its scope is much wider and its doctrines are the 
most valuable of the kind that have ever been taught, 

The curative work is the next and final one; and here’ you have 
the three systems of Ralstonism, each performing a fixed line of 
duties, and all combining to make a perfect whole. Hot one of 
these can be spared. When once we tried to put all the doctrines 
in one book, we were besieged by thousands of applicants for the 
complete system. 

Now the next question arises, How shall these be brought within 
the reach of all classes? That is, of the poor and well-to-do, the 
ignorant and the educated? We ask advice of our members; of 
you, if you will express a sincere opinion as to how we can with 
justice to all, bring the blessings and advantages of these’ three 
systems within reach of everybody. 

We want to do just as the great majority of our members de¬ 
sire. We have acted in harmony with their wishes for nearly 
thirty years. Now what do you advise? The plan that has been 
most approved is that which is described in the next chapter 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 

i__ 

Board of GoVerijn^eijt 

OF . THE . RALSTON . HEALTH . CLUB 


RGANIZATION is as much a part of human character 
as the sunlight is a part of the sky. The fact is, there 
are too many organizations that are instituted merely 
for the purpose of gratifying the desire for such things. 
Some are selfish, some are social, some are beneficial, 
some are literary, some are bonds of true affiliation and some are 
religious. 

The great evangelist, Moody, said that every person in this 
world was given two great talents to protect and make the highest 
use of: the first was the immortal part of self, and the second was 
the body in which it dwelt. A true organization, therefore, must 
seek these great ends before other purposes can be honestly con¬ 
sidered. When these foundation principles are lost sight of, all 
else that is worth living for must turn to failure. 

The first of these two purposes is being maintained by the 
great religious organizations of the world; and there is no duty 
that can be compared to that which is owing to the church by 
every man and woman. 

Second in importance is the protection of the human faculties; 
of body, mind and nerves; they are the talents of great value 
which are entrusted to each man and woman for safe keeping 
and especially for use, and without the aid of which none of the 
great works of progress could be carried on. 

When these mighty responsibilities are recognized and met with 
the courage of noble convictions, then it may be time for the 

177 













178 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


people to set up other organizations for the lesser purposes of life; 
but we are able to come to you and say that it is a necessary part 
of a successful existence to remain loyal to some such organiza¬ 
tion as the Ralston Health Club, and to fight for the spread of 
its principles. Our reasons are as follows: 

1. There is no other organization on earth that stands for the 
principles of perfect health of body and mind. 

2. This Club has been in existence long enough to be equipped 
with the knowledge and power to accomplish what it undertakes 
in the life of each one of its members. It is not an experiment; 
it has proved its success for more than a quarter of a century. 

3. It is so arranged that it can never go out of existence. By 
the system of Regents and inheritance, the Club will go on as 
long as civilization exists. 

4. Many of the greatest men and women of the world believe 
in it. 

Personal friends have promised each other to live as near as 
possible to the Ralston principles, in order to see how long they 
might retain perfect health and the best use of their faculties. 
Husbands and wives have made such pledges, each to the other, 
so they might live to see their children grown up and their grand¬ 
children and great-grandchildren men and women. We have five 
generations in many Ralston households. Perfect health is the 
foundation of a fortune to those who lack it, and the beginning 
of happiness to those who are rich. 

Three errors prevail in half-informed minds as to the Ralston 
Health Club. They are these: 

1st. It is said that it is not easy to live the Ralston life. 

2d. It is said that only the rich can join the Club. 

3d. It is said that one member must secure other members. 

All these claims are absolutely untrue. The facts are really 
these: 

First .—It is as easy to live the Ralston life as to live any other 
kind of life, and certainly much easier than to be an invalid or 
to be sick. When one is sick, the care and work as well as most 
of the grieving are thrown on others. The bravado with which 
some people boast that they never had a sick day in their lives, 
and that they are not concerned about their health, is not bravery, 
but rather cowardice, for they are imposing on the time, labor 
and good will of others who must of necessity take care of them 


BOARD OF GOVERNMENT. 179 

when their indifference brings the inevitable sick spell. Here 
are two propositions that should be kept in mind: 

It is impossible for a person in good health to become an in¬ 
valid if the simple methods of this book are observed. 

It is impossible for a person to remain well who pays no at¬ 
tention to regime. You cannot eat anything you please and 
keep well. You cannot deny yourself fresh air and varied physi¬ 
cal activity and keep well. You may take chances for awhile 
with impunity, but the penalty will have to be paid sooner or 
later. 

Now, if the facts of nature permitted it, we would gladly say 
to each and every Ralstonite, “ Go ahead, eat, drink, be merry, 
please yourself in everything, live only for self, deny yourself 
nothing, sit and be comfortable all the time, read and use the 
mind only in the way that affords you the greatest pleasure, and 
have no care, no duty, no responsibility, no work, no progress, 
nothing but selfish pleasure and ease all through life.” But 
nature decrees otherwise. Her great laws declare that living is 
expressed only through activity of all the muscles and functions 
under an intelligent system of watchfulness. We did not make 
the laws. Do not blame us. Some people are disposed to find 
fault with us because nature is so exacting and arbitrary in her 
demands. 

Owing to the causes already stated in the pages of this book, it 
is more difficult now than ever before to keep well. The statis¬ 
tics show most conclusively that doctors are on the increase, drug 
stores are on the increase, the making of medicines is on the in¬ 
crease, the output of patent medicines is fearfully on the increase, 
surgical practice is on the increase, hospitals are on the increase, 
and where there were a few sanatoriums a generation ago there are 
now thousands. This increase is not the kind that keeps pace with 
the growing population of the country, but it is an increase that 
is much greater than the growth of the country. As a rule the 
white race is the recklessly negligent race. The other races, com¬ 
pelled by poverty to adopt simpler methods, suffer less. Under the 
law of the survival of the most vital, the white race is doomed. 

A NEW RACE is not a dream. It is a necessity. 

It can be made an immediate possibility to-day, to-morrow, 
and for all time, if each Ralstonite will do his of her duty. 

What is called the Board of Government in the Ralston Health 


180 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Club is the membership of this Club and its expressed wishes as to 
the best way of carrying on the work now in hand. We appeal 
only to the white race. From that race must the new people be 
organized. 

Our only hope is with people of intelligence. But they are 
found among the poor and the well-to-do. Ralstonism has lifted 
many a poor family out of poverty in the past thirty years. The 
influence of better health is always on the side of better brains, and, 
therefore, better faculties for making life a success. 

It is our duty to TEACH. 

We must guide the people aright. Our teachings must be suited 
to all classes: the well, the sick, the invalid, the sufferer; and 
what is suited to one class will not help another. 

For the POOR man or woman the step known as General Mem¬ 
bership is provided, and the book of Ralston Meals is placed 
within reach of all. The reason for making that book the first 
and simplest step is seen in the preceding chapter, where the fol¬ 
lowing language is used: When the blood is out of balance by 
improper diet, an intense and uncontrollable craving is set up for 
stimulants and false nutriment, which leads the mind into con¬ 
stant error, and produces an obstinate refusal to listen to the 
dictates of judgment. For this reason the first real step in a 
sensible method of living is to adopt a course of liberal but scien¬ 
tific eating such as is found in Ralston Meals. 

That book, spread but in the usual type and openness of setting, 
would make a book twice the size of this. Surely no one can claim 
that the price is high. The sum of fifty cents includes the book, 
also the right to be called a General Member of the Ralston Health 
Club for life, and the right to ask for our reports, greetings and 
other literature such as we usually send to Ralstonites; and all for 
life. The cost of advantages so great is the smallest that could 
be conceived. It prevents the member from being what is known 
as a deadhead, for such a member is useless to self and to the world. 

All our members, without exception, are heartily in favor of 
this low price. 

The present work, Inside Membership, with its rights to club 
number, greetings, reports, and life association, is certainly placed 
at a very low price when sold for $1.10. We have never had a 
protest from any source that the cost was too great. It deals with 
all the questions of health, not only in the food line, but in all 


BOARD OF GOVERNMENT. 


181 


other departments as far as they relate to persons who are not 
actually affected by some specific disease. It is not a book of 
treatments, and has always been so announced. We are careful 
that all our members should let it be fully known in advance that 
there are no private or specific treatments in this book of Inside 
Membership. It is what it is claimed to be, a complete and per¬ 
fect guide for all persons except those who need a doctor. 

We tried, for nearly fifteen years, to get along without a book 
of treatments; but the demand kept increasing for them, and we 
issued a number of successful treatises in pamplet form which did 
a great deal of good. These were stolen from us by specialists who 
advertised them under other names for five dollars each. Thus 
our old treatment for consumption, which was less than half the 
size of the same treatise now included in the book of Complete Mem¬ 
bership, was sold privately by purloiners for various sums of money, 
in a few cases as high as twenty-five dollars being paid for it by 
sufferers who were induced to answer the advertisements of doctors; 
and in no instance was it sold for less than five dollars. We re¬ 
ceived only a few cents for it, and others made the profit. 

In another instance our former treatment for the cure of in¬ 
somnia, which has never had a failure, was sold for five dollars, 
ten dollars, and even fifty dollars in one case, by doctors who took 
advantage of our many years of investigation and hard effort 
to acquire a certain cure for that precursor of insanity. Yet that 
treatise was less than half the size of the present treatment for the 
same disease. 

Constipation is the most prevalent malady to-day, attended, as 
it is, by dangers of appendicitis, kidney diseases, liver troubles, 
stomach disorders, bad breath, etc. We have been working for 
fully thirty years on this one line of cure, and the only remedy 
now on earth that is safe and permanent is the treatment found 
in our book of Complete Membership. It cannot fail. It does 
not fail. Yet the results of these years of costly research are 
sold by us for a trifle, and doctors make use of the treatment at a 
high charge. 

The book of COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP is a collection of 
the latest science in all lines of cure, where we have found cures to 
be impossible. They make a big book, a bulky book, and such a 
Volume in the medical profession would easily be considered worth 
ten dollars. We have forty-four effective treatments, all reliable, 


182 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


and such as doctors of successful practice are fast falling into the 
use of, for they are our patrons as well as the general public. 
Indeed, one of our most active and loyal members was for many 
years President of the New York State Medical Society, and New 
York City Medical Society, as well as lecturer in medical colleges. 
Honest doctors everywhere who have investigated our treatments 
are heartily in favor of them; and those who have not investigated 
them have no right to oppose them. 

No medicines, apparatus, or other thing is required. We have 
nothing to sell. If we were disposed to seek wealth as the patent 
medicine people do, we could impose millions of dollars’ worth of 
stuff on our patrons. But we have but one ambition, and that is 
to bring men and women into perfect health, so that they may 
become living examples of the NEW BACE. 

Take this test if you will: 

Consumption is an awful disease; it secures its hold on almost 
all human beings, is driven off in many cases, and in others it 
works its way in secret until there is little hope of recovery with¬ 
out a fearful battle with the dread monster. Now study the 
methods of cure. Get them from the great specialists, and no 
others can tell you the real facts. Go to the sanatoriums and there 
study them. Then take our treatment, which is one of the forty- 
four, and compare it with what you have learned from the special¬ 
ists and from hospitals and sanatoriums; and you will see that we 
include all that is known to-day by science, that we have each and 
every detail perfect, besides which we have surer and quicker means 
of help, without omitting a single detail from the methods em¬ 
ployed elsewhere. This shows that we are in line with the latest 
and best science. To have all this knowledge in perfect command 
in forty-four great treatments involves great expense and great 
publication enterprise. Yet it is necessary, for our members de¬ 
mand it. 

We will state in this place as briefly as possible what these forty- 
four treatments are. They do not include everything, for there 
are some maladies that cannot be cured. We publish only what 
has been tested and found to be effective. Any other plan would 
be dishonest. 

The first treatment is that which cleans out the system, and gets 
rid of the accumulation of years of disease-breeding material in 
the body. The absence of this condition prevents any disease from 


BOARD OF GOVERNMENT. 


183 


securing a hold on any part of the system, and the blood is at once 
cleansed. 

The second treatment is the great success, the cure of constipa¬ 
tion. We have already referred to that. 

The third treatment is the only modern and successful method 
by which to fight colds, la grippe, and the tendency to catch colds. 
It is proving a blessing wherever it is being tried. 

The fourth treatment is the cure, as well as the prevention of 
catarrhs, not only in the nose, throat, and bronchial passages, but 
all through the body. This has accomplished easily in thousands 
of lives what the best medical and douche-remedies have failed 
to do. 

The fifth treatment cures headaches, and all who suffer from 
this terrible malady will know what it means to be rid of the 
anguish. 

The sixth treatment is one of the greatest ever given to the 
public. It treats all forms of stomach trouble. This malady is 
universal except among Ralstonites who live up to the doctrines 
they are taught. We should deem it a favor worth recompense if 
you can point out any case of stomach trouble or indigestion that 
cannot he cured by our number six. 

The seventh treatment is that which has been stolen from us 
so often and sold by others for five dollars and upwards per case. 
It is the cure of consumption, and the method by which weak 
lungs are made sound and perfect. We have previously referred 
to it. 

The eighth treatment overcomes nervousness and all kinds of 
nervous disorders. It is worth hundreds of dollars to a sufferer 
who wishes genuine and permanent relief. The irritable condi¬ 
tion of the nerves of men and women to-day is undoubtedly the 
cause of much of the sin and evil that are prevalent in this era, as 
well as the bad habits, the demand for stimulants and for tempt¬ 
ing foods that only add to the distraction. Perfect nerves will 
help to bring perfect enjoyment in life. 

The ninth treatment deals with the breaking up of the tissue of 
the brain, the weakening of the brain-cells, the deficient memory, 
the atrophy of finer parts of that great organ, and other diseases 
that show themselves in the inability to retain intricate facts. 
'Did age is prematurely brought on by the mental defects noted. 
This treatment is one of the most important ever issued, and is 


184 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


new in method. It should be in the hands of those who are per¬ 
fectly well, for the strength of the brain should never be lessened. 

The tenth treatment is also new and of special value. It re¬ 
gards the WILL POWER as a faculty that becomes weak under 
certain influences. That the will power can be greatly strengthened 
is already a proved fact in thousands of cases. 

The eleventh treatment is one of the most successful ever known, 
and is fast displacing the use of medicines in the cure of RHEU¬ 
MATISM. If you know of any case of rheumatism that cannot 
be cured by this treatment we wish to be informed of it at once. 
And we further state that there is no treatment on earth that will 
cure rheumatism except our number eleven. This is not boasting; 
it is a fact that ought to be brought home to every sufferer, and 
we cannot state it strongly enough. 

The twelfth treatment is preventive only; the method of build¬ 
ing up the conditions of the health so as to avoid an attack of 
apoplexy. Most all persons likely to be affected have symptoms in 
advance. 

The thirteenth and all up to the end of the twenty-ninth are 
preventive for the most part; as the acute forms require the 
presence of physicians. We can show the way to prevent appendi¬ 
citis, starting at once, but the surgeon is generally the one called in 
to effect the cure. Prevention is better. The fourteenth deals 
with the approach of age-conditions, and these are shown to be 
due to certain toxins and accumulations in the body. This study 
is new and very interesting for all persons, whether in good health 
or not. Boils and carbuncles are the subject of the fifteenth treat¬ 
ment, and the method of preventing as well as curing them is 
given. Bright’s Disease is the formidable subject of the sixteenth 
treatment. A cure is not promised, but prevention and the chang¬ 
ing of inducing habits are fully presented. Cancer is the seven¬ 
teenth ; we do not know how to cure it, but its prevention is a very 
great study, especially if you have any ancestor who has ever died 
from the awful affliction. We can save you from it if you do not 
start too late. 

Number eighteen is having a most wonderful success, even 
greater than we have ever anticipated. It is the cure of diabetes, 
but more especially the prevention of it; and also the maintaining 
of life when the disease is deeply seated. Cases of real cures are 
being dealt with by us, and it is one of the incurable maladies; 


BOARD OF GOVERNMENT. 


185 


in most instances. But it must always be remembered that the 
cured patient can never go back to a normal diet. We have ad¬ 
vertised this treatment as preventive only; but it is the whole 
method from first to last. 

The next three are merely preventive, dropsy, diphtheria and 
gout. We afford all the help possible, but it must always be of a 
preventive nature in such maladies. Dropsy and gout, however, 
often are cured by our number 11. Gray hair is the subject of the 
twenty-second. The causes and remedies, as far as any are known, 
are fully stated. The preservation of the hair is a very important 
matter for study. 

The twenty-third treatment, infant maladies, ought to be in 
every home where there are children. It has been our claim for 
many years that these lives can be saved. 

The next treatments are those for meningitis, mental break¬ 
down, paralysis, pneumonia, small-pox and typhoid. No Ralston- 
ite will ever die of these maladies, or have them in his family, if 
he is a person of intelligence and is in earnest. The time to fight 
such diseases is when they are yet out of harm’s way. Typhoid 
last year made the worst havoc ever wrought in this country. To 
be cured of it is not enough, for the brain is never as good as 
before the delirium has taken the power from it. Learn how to 
keep typhoid away at all times. Do not wait till it threatens. 

The thirtieth treatment deals with the whole question of the 
complexion. It is proving very successful. The thirty-first treat¬ 
ment takes charge of the subjects of mental depression, melancholy 
and kindred diseases of the temperament; all of which are very 
prevalent. The thirty-second treatment prevents, cures and cor¬ 
rects the conditions leading to dysentery and diarrhoea. 

Failing eyesight is the subject of the thirty-third treatment, and 
the care of the eyes is also discussed. There is no other line of 
help so effectual as the suggestions given under this treatise. The 
thirty-fourth treatment deals with excessive fat, and the method 
is new. 

Insomnia, or sleeplessness, the forerunner of insanity, or often 
merely the result of wrong methods of living, is herein made the 
subject of the greatest treatment ever issued; the thirty-fifth, the 
perfect plan of procedure which is given has been pronounced the 
"most scientific work of its kind now before the public. It CURES 
the malady. The relief is certain. 


186 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


The thirty-sixth treatment deals with influenza, rose cold, hay 
fever and similar conditions. 

The thirty-seventh treatment is directly for the BLOOD. It 
undertakes to completely regenerate the circulation and to purify 
the blood through habits of living and special attention. No medi¬ 
cines can do this, no matter how strenuous the claim may be. The 
thirty-eighth treatment overcomes loss of appetite. The thirty- 
ninth treatment is new and is an effective means of curing leanness. 

Then comes another of those very great treatments, the fortieth, 
which involves a large scope of curative methods; in this case 
applying to the disordered liver, and all liver troubles. The organ 
is so much involved in the health of the stomach, the purity of the 
blood, the safety of the kidneys and the general health that it 
should be kept at all times in perfect condition. People who are 
well should make a study to keep well by understanding the habits 
and treatment that most affect the liver. 

In the forty-first treatment we present the latest science on the 
subject of the prevention and cure of malaria. In the forty- 
second we have done the world a great service in the certainty of 
our cure for neuralgia. In the forty-third treatment the subject 
becomes of the greatest importance, for it is the cure of skin dis¬ 
eases. The last, the forty-fourth, deals with the heart, the vital 
organ of life and power, and no subject can be of greater impor¬ 
tance. This organ should be kept in perfect health if it is now so, 
and it should be brought into the condition of perfect health if it 
is not now blessed with that quality; so that, in either case, it is 
the duty of all persons who value life to take care of its chief 
function. 


Any one of the treatments, if it does the work claimed for it, 
is worth many dollars to the patient. You can see at a glance 
what a wide scope the book of Complete Membership involves. To 
prepare such a work is a gigantic undertaking; and to keep it in 
touch with the latest science is the most stupendous task of all. 
The questions now to be asked by ns and answered by you are 
these : 

How should such a work as Complete Membership be placed 
within reach of those who need it? 

What should be the price asked for it? 



BOARD OF GOVERNMENT. 


187 


To include it in the book of Inside Membership would result 
in placing that work beyond the reach of almost all who seek it 
and who need it first of all and above all. The price of the book 
of Inside Membership must be kept as close to one dollar as is 
possible to prevent actual loss. Therefore the big book of Com¬ 
plete Membership cannot become a part of that. 

Then another fact must be kept in mind: If we were to keep 
on selling the book of Complete Membership at the rate at which 
the book is now selling, with the price seven dollars per copy, it 
would take nearly five years to repay the cost to which we have 
been put in gathering the facts, making the tests, preparing the 
treatments and publishing the great volume. 

WELL-TO-DO persons are, therefore, given the privilege of buy¬ 
ing this book for seven dollars per copy, which gives them the 
right to keep the same and use it for a lifetime if they so desire. 
At this price the cost per treatment would be less than sixteen 
cents. We do not separate the treatments, as many are related, 
and some are dependent on several others where the maladies 
have some causes in common. They are all bound in one large 
volume, and must be taken as a whole or not at all. 

POOR members are accorded the same rights as Progressive 
Members, which are described later on in this chapter. This means 
that they are allowed to earn the great book of Complete Member¬ 
ship. This plan is not original with us; it was accorded to mem¬ 
bers at their own request, and we have allowed it ever since. 

There is no reason why a man or woman should be denied an 
expensive book simply because of being unable to pay for it. Still 
there is no reason why they should be given it without cost. They 
are in the position of the man who wishes shelter and food and 
is willing to work for them, if he is honest. It is not difficult to 
earn the book of Complete Membership with its forty-four treat¬ 
ments under the same principle. 

PROGRESSIVE RALSTONITES are members who demand 
recognition for their influence in bringing Inside Members into the 
Club. They ask us to give them copies of our Personal Invitations 
to send to their friends, or to acquaintances, or to strangers. On 
these Invitations they write their Club-Number, which is given 
when page 15 of this book is sent us: and when these Invitations 
are accepted, each one so accepted is credited to the member. 
Five such acceptances will allow the member to be advanced to 


188 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


the fifth degree as a Progressive Ralstonite, and this entitles such 
member to the book of Complete Membership with its forty-four 
treatments. 

These Invitation Bonds are expensive. Yet we allow every 
Progressive Member to have as many as will be used judiciously. 
One clergyman called his people together at an evening meet¬ 
ing, told them that his life had been saved by Ralstonism, and 
a hundred joined the Club that night. The clergyman did not ask 
for credit, but we allowed him the rank of the one hundredth 
degree, which made him a Ralston Regent. 

Every person who wishes to be allowed degrees for new members 
should use the initials P. R. following the name or Club-Number. 
These initials may also be used by members who are POOR and 
who cannot afford to pay the price for the book of Complete Mem¬ 
bership. To us the initials mean Progressive Ralstonite, and not 
Poor Ralstonite; for the rank and advantages are exactly the same 
in either case. We have on our books some names of millionaries 
who have the same initials, P. R., because they insist on being 
credited with all the recruits they bring into the influence of the 
Club. With them it is not a matter of cost, but of honor. One 
lady, whose wealth is estimated at fourteen millions of dollars, 
brought into the Club seventy-six members in one month, and de¬ 
manded that she be credited with that number of degrees of honor. 

Now let us sum up the whole plan: 

First. It is not true that members must secure other members 
m order to obtain the books in case they choose to pay for them 
Each book may be purchased outright at the usual prices, and no 
person need join the Club or be regarded as a Ralstonite, but the 
purchaser may do so if he or she wishes. The prices are as follows • 

Ralston Meals is sold for fifty cents. It cannot be obtained in 
any other way than by purchase. 

INSIDE MEMBERSHIP is sold for $1.10. 

COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP is sold for seven dollars. 

We make this statement in reply to the oft-repeated assertion 
that members must secure other members in order to remain in the 
Club. The fact is that any person who has once joined the Club 
is allowed to remain for life without further payment of any sum 
of money, large or small. 

Second. It is not true that only the rich can join the Club 

The poorest man or woman (except the abject poor, who would 


BOARD OF GOVERNMENT 


189 


not be benefited by membership) can start by paying fifty cents for 
the book of Ralston Meals, which carries with it the right to ask 
for a Club-Number, and also for admission as a General Member 
to the Ralston Health Club, together with the right to ask for 
reports, greetings, etc. 

That need be the only cash that is to be paid if the member 
chooses to take advantage of the opportunities stated in the last 
part of Ralston Meals; and the advance may be made even as far 
as securing free copies of Inside Membership book and also Com¬ 
plete Membership with its forty-four treatments. 

Or the forms at the back of this book can be used by any P. R. 

Can anything be fairer? 

Then take up this problem in arithmetic and work it out: If it 
will take us five years to receive back the actual cost of preparing 
the forty-four great treatments of the book of Complete Membership, 
even if we sell the book always for cash at seven dollars per volume, 
how long will it take to do this under the P. R. Plan, which allows 
five copies of the book of Inside Membership and one copy of the 
book of Complete Membership, with its forty-four treatments, all 
for five dollars and fifty cents ? 

In bringing this important work to a close, let us impress upon 
you the necessity of having a standard in this world by which to 
live, so that the faculties of mind, heart and body may be brought 
into perfect harmony with the purposes of creation; for they are 
talents given to humanity, not to neglect and abuse, nor to hide 
under a bushel, but to protect, guard and use for the nobler ends 
of life. 

Members should always maintain two attitudes toward the Club. 

First, they should take pride in its principles, having an abiding 
loyalty for them under all circumstances, especially when meeting 
opposition from the non-thinking classes. 

Second, they should have an ever-present desire to speak of 
the Club to others who may be brought within the influence of its 
blessings. One of the most frequent letters we receive reads some¬ 
thing like this: “Will you please thank the member who sent 
me the invitation to become a Ralstonite? I owe such person a 
debt of gratitude which I can never repay.” It is grand to think 
that the power of good may be carried into other lives that are 
"thirsting for such evidence of the better impulses of human na¬ 
ture. 


190 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 


Above all things keep in mind the following insignia of the Club: 
MOTTO :—“ Perfect Health” 

PURPOSE :—“To establish a New Race.” 


We now bring our labors to a close as far as this book is con¬ 
cerned and leave the results to you, as far as those results lie in 
the path of your influence. As has been said before, the Ralston 
Club can never die. It will live and flourish by the law of propa¬ 
gation until the work of universal reform has been achieved. 

It is well to remember that the Ralston doctrines of health 
are Nature’s first laws; that their foundations are laid deeper 
than the hand of man can plant; and their turrets, let us hope, 
reach heavenward. Their principles cannot be shaken; for they 
are right. If the physician can cure, if drugs and medicines can 
restore health, it must be through the agency of these laws; but 
always in lesser degree. It is the common remark of physicians 
and scientists that we know but little more of disease and its cure 
in this century than did the ancients of Greece and Rome. In 
the dawning light of this new education let us believe that the 
intelligence of man will prompt him to adopt the higher laws of 
existence and health and take them direct from the hand of Nature. 

That this may be possible, and that the means of preserving the 
integrity of the human organism from its fell destroyer may be 
as simple as it is certain, the Ralston Health Club has presented a 
system that is easily adopted by rich and poor, by the scientist 
and the layman, by the learned and unlearned alike. You, and all 
of us, will find it both easy and pleasurable to live up to the Ralston 
System. 

This book we now commit to your charge, and with it the 
Membership which it implies. May you and it be inseparable 
companions; may its pages open up to you new truths, to be 
conned and learned until their spirit shall become a part of your 
desires; may it never leave you in final parting; but on the 
other hand we hope that you shall be the first to leave it, not in 
the years that mark the highway of the present generation, but in 
the hazy distance of Life’s long autumn, far, far away from the 
day your name was first enrolled as a member of 


THE RALSTON HEALTH CLUB. 




0 

The most important and most valuable health work on 
earth today. A large book of grand proportions 

magnificently bound 


















































































































































































































































































































FORM OF APPLICATION ® 

sea 


FOR BOOK OF 44 TREATMENTS. 


To RALSTON COMPANY, 1223 to 1231 G Street, Washington, D. C.: 

I am the exclusive owner of a copy of the book of Inside Mem¬ 
bership, of the 93d edition. 

I hereby send page 15 taken from said book, duly filled out. 
(Or, I have heretofore sent page 15, and have received club-num¬ 
ber ....) 

I wish to become a Complete Member of the Ralston Health 
Club, and enclose the cost of five degrees, at the rate of $1.10 for 
each degree; also thirty-eight cents for expense of sending the book 
of forty-four treatments, known as the book of Complete Membership, 

making tPlP rpmittanrp tntal RR /If you add twelve cents more, we will include the Clan\ 

llldKlllg me leilllliaiiue iuia.1 vPO.OO. ^Guide with the great volume of Complete Membership ) 

For the foregoing remittance I wish to receive five copies of the 
book of Inside Membership, and I agree to obtain five recruits for 
the Ralston Health Club, to whom I will deliver said five books, either 
by present or by sale; but I will not give them to persons who are 
apparently insincere in their desire to acquire or maintain good health. 

(In case you have no prospective members in view, you may ask for coupons good for the five books and these will 
be honored at some later date. Kindly fill out the following :) 

Do you wish coupons instead of five books of Inside Membership ?. 

Name...... 

Town or City.... 

State. 

Street and Number ( orP if °ny ox ’)... 

Remit by Draft Postal Money Order, or Express Money Order, to Ralston Company, Washington D C If 
bills are sent always register the letter. 8 * 

RD 167 








































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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